Before the Stars
by SomeoneI'mSure
Summary: (Slight AU, Origin story.) In the beginning, there was only rain and darkness. The Shadowlands, orginal home to the great and distant ancestors to all the Cats of the Forest, was a place where no cat should live. Spottedkit, not yet Spottedpelt, was sent here to learn something, but what can she learn when there is only pain, sorrow and death? ((Review, please. Summary altered.))
1. StarClan's Work or Not?

**A/N: An AU-type story which takes place in Spottedkit/Spottedleaf's younger life and also the distant past, before cats had even come to Fourtrees and the surrounding area.**

**~S.I.S.**

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**Chapter 1**

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The tortoiseshell she-kit coughed and curled closer to her mother's warm belly as a cold wind blew into the nursery. It whipped around the familiar nursery smells, of her mother and her siblings, but she was far too deep into her dreams to pay it any mind. She gave another soft cough, drawing the attention of her mother. The tabby-and-white queen licked the kit's fur with her rough tongue, and pressed her nose up against her daughters'. It was slightly warm and dry.

"Adderfang?" she meowed suddenly, turning to where the tom usually laid when he was allowed into the nursery.

The dark brown tabby instantly came alive, his head wiping around and eyes alert. "What is it? Are we under attack?"

On a normal day, Swiftbreeze might have purred with amusement at her mate's antics, but today she did not even look up. "Can you get Featherwhisker?"

The broad-headed tom was suddenly on his feet, inching closer to his mate and three kits. "Why? What's wrong?"

Swiftbreeze looked down at her daughter. "Tell him I think Spottedkit's got a cough."

The dark brown tabby frowned worriedly, but nodded and quickly departed the nursery. His paws instantly met snow, which stretched out in a white blanket before him, as he forced himself not to rush to the Medicine Cat's den. He did not want the Clan to be aroused in panic that one of their kits might die.

'_I hope my daughter doesn't have whitecough in this weather,_' he thought, '_Or worse._'

He padded as swiftly as he could to the medicine cat den, too preoccupied with his own thoughts to meow a hello to a Clan member as he brushed past. When he reached the den, he found the place strangely empty. A panic seized him then, and it took all of his self control not to turn the entire stash of carefully arranged herbs upside down looking for the old tom. Back tracking, he turned left and right, hunting for the tom cat, and found the fresh pawsteps leading away from the den and into the clearing. Featherwhisker, the grey medicine cat, lay on the ground beside a finished pheasant, licking his paws and fur clean of blood. Adderfang marched out of the den, a tom on a mission, as he approached Featherwhisker with single-minded intent.

"Featherwhisker," Adderfang practically hissed at the tom. He barreled right over the medicine cat's greeting and straight to the problem, throwing his own common sense and caution out the window. "Swiftbreeze thinks Spottedkit has got a cough."

Aroused by his fellow Clanmate's worry and suddenly spurred into action by his words, Featherwhisker wasted no more time in the clearing and immediately headed toward the queen's den. With a flick of his tail, he silently instructed that the father wait outside. Though not happy with the command, he instantly obeyed the Medicine cat and settled on his haunches, curling his tail around his paws to wait. Another cold wind blew across the clearing, causing the fretting tom to shudder.

A few moments later, after Adderfang's anxiety had soared when he heard some hushed voices inside, Featherwhisker came back out, carrying a small bundle in his mouth. Instantly, Adderfang was on his paws, preparing to ask a hundred questions, but Featherwhisker warned him away with a flick of his ears.

Worried for his daughter, he padded behind the medicine cat tom toward the den, where he waited anxiously at the entrance. He felt as if he were waiting for Swiftbreeze to give birth all over again, and his paws itched to pace back and forth across the clearing. After a few moments of unbearable nothing, he gave a quiet meow, asking to come in.

"Come in," rumbled the response. Adderfang quickly padded inside, but stopped at an unexpected sight. The smell of catmint lay on the air, hitting him as he stepped in. Adderfang recognized the smell from all the treatments Featherwhisker used for whitecough and greencough, causing his fear to plummet into the pit of his stomach, cold and hollow. His daughter was ill, and someone had come to take her away.

It was a visage of the distant past. An old she-cat, and yet young at the same time, lay curled around the small kitten, mists forming up her body and a single star gleaming from between her bright pale moon eyes. Adderfang could not believe his eyes, or his heart, and he looked to the medicine cat for guidance, searching for an answer.

"It's a sign."

Featherwhisker's response to his unanswered question only served to make Adderfang even more anxious. He forced down a whine and moved further into the den, approaching the StarClan cat and his most likely dying daughter.

"I'll wait for her to wake up," said Adderfang, mystified, as he looked down at the two sleeping she-cats. "Which ever one wakes up first."

Featherwhisker nodded. "Thank you. I'll go to speak with StarClan."

* * *

She was beyond Featherwhisker's help now.

As he padded out and away from the camp, the grey tom slowly began to realize that fact. He knew that it was customary for a cat from StarClan to come down to visit someone in the medicine cat den in order to bring them to StarClan. The grey tom knew instinctively that he could do nothing, whether to help the kit or to not, and silently he wondered why StarClan had done this to him. He had tried his best to keep his clan alive, especially during leaf-bare. He kept up the elder's strength with herbs and he kept up his own strength with the same herbs, especially when it seemed not enough fresh-kill could go around. Why would they send him this kit simply to retrieve her in a few short days?

"_We didn't._"

Suddenly, amongst the snow and ice, a different type of snow began to form. It condensed, swirling around in it's own miniature windstorm, transforming into the outline of a cat. A white, starry-eyed form stared back at him from amongst the blanket of fallen snow. She sat in front of him, forcing him to stop and sit down

"Snowfur?"

The young StarClan warrior nodded, but her eyes had a distant faraway look to them, as if she was looking at something he could not see. She stared down at her paws, quietly contemplating.

Featherwhisker decided to break the silence. "Do you know who that cat in the medicine cat den is?"

The white she-cat remained silent, staring at the ground. Suddenly, her head snapped around to look Featherwhisker straight in the eye, the clear sharpness unnerving him.

"_She is The Star."_

And then, in a gust of wind, she was nothing more than a flurry.

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**End Chapter 1**

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**A/N**: Chapters 1-3 have been redone.


	2. A Long Time Ago and Now

**A/N: Edited to help clear up confusion.**

**Disclaimer: Warriors I do not own.**

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**Chapter 2**

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Spottedkit first came to with the realization that she was cold. The smell of the nursery hung like tendrils of ice cold wind to the den, but something foreign and strange pervaded through her mind and caused her to stir. It was the smell of the freshkill pile, but with some more tainted that went with it. Something wet coated the floor of the den, something which smelled strongly of that taint. Startled at the sudden nipping cold which came with the next breath of leaf-bare air, the tortoiseshell opened her eyes and stood up.

She was trembling all over, shaking like a leaf. She gave a piteous meow, calling for her mother. Why was it so cold? Why was it so wet?

"Dapples?" said an unfamiliar male voice, young like her own. "You fell off the pile again."

Spottedkit reacted to the name with some familiarity, but her mind was preoccupied with that smell as her body seemed to suddenly take a life of its own and she crawled up the small pile of mud. She wrinkled her nose as she addressed the equally shaky and small sand-colored tom. "What's that smell?"

The sand-colored tom blinked. "I think it's Dawn," he said, looked across the hill to a pile of wet fur at the bottom. "She won't wake up."

The two kittens kept their paws tucked beneath their chest fur and, suddenly, Spottedkit shifted closer to the tom. "Does momma know?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "She was like that when I woke up."

Spottedkit looked over and down at the small form, wondering for an instant if that might have been her, if she hadn't suddenly woken up. She had such a strange dream...

She blinked, and the world suddenly became darker. A massive silhouette had covered the doorway of the lean-to, blocking the entrance from the wind and carrying an oddly plump white rabbit from her jowls. The smell of freshkill roused the third kit from his slumber, but he would be mildly disappointed. There was no smell of milk.

"Momma?" squeaked her little voice.

The she-cat deposited her freshkill on the highest section of ground, away from the flooded floor. A blanket of whitish-grey slush appeared at the entrance as she padded away from it and curled up around her kits. Comfortable, she turned to address her kit, the tag on her blue collar tinkling slightly. "Yes, Dapples?"

But, what she said next was not the main question on her mind at that moment. It was as if someone else had suddenly wrested control over her entire body. "I'm hungry."

The pale, blue eyes blinked slowly in understanding. "I know," she said, leaning forward to lick her gently on the forehead. "I know. In a moment, love."

The yellow tom suddenly spoke up. "Momma, Dawn's not moving."

As one, the entire family looked at the dark clump of wet fur that was the she-cat. The brown-and-white patched queen lifted her head and blinked, curling her tail tighter around her litter and hiding the sight from them. Her voice was filled with pain as she answered.

"I know, Lion, I know."

* * *

She was dreaming, she knew, but it was in flashes. The winter peeled away to spring and, suddenly, Spottedkit felt bigger, stronger, and a whole lot less clumsy. She knew, from her connection with the ancient she-cat Dapples, that she and her dream brothers would be leaving the lean-to today. They were big enough to travel to wherever the queen had in store for them. As she took her first steps outside, Spottedkit paused as her paws sank into the soft ground outside the lean-to, feeling the mud squish up between her toes. A dark ginger tabby tom padded slightly ahead of her. He made a face as his paws touched the mud and whined loudly in protest to the mud.

"I don't like this stuff. Why is the ground so squishy?"

"It's new-leaf grounds, dear," purred the brown and white she-cat. "The snow has melted and soaked the earth. That's why the dirt's so squishy."

"I don't like it," whined the fluffy tom kit, lifting a paw to sniff at the mud. He sat down when it proved too difficult to hold the limb up, but immediately stood up again, mud covering his tail. He pinned his ears down. "I wanna go back inside."

The mother's collar jingled as she stopped, and she looked over her three kittens. They had walked only a short distance from the lean-to. It's wooden top protruded over the grounds behind them.

"Why isn't Dawn coming with us?" asked the other tom, a mottled sand-colored cat. He kept glancing back, too, as if expecting his sister to rise up out of the dark mouth of the lean-to.

The she-cat flinched slightly, but she flicked her tail for him to follow. "She's not among us anymore. A different destiny awaits her. Tiger, Dapples, Lion, come along. We must move before the rains come."

The three kittens stumbled and bound after their mother, trudging up the slight incline before following her underneath a brush. She kept to a slow pace, allowing her kits to keep pace with her. They walked for a long time, but it was only a short distance for her. Soon, they reached a wooden Twoleg nest. The cabin looked old, but had been built within the she-cat's own lifetime. She gestured to a sign on the door.

"Children," she said, "these are man's words. This one means 'Mr. and Mrs. Charles's House'. There are a couple of old pellets in there. We can soak it and eat it until I have enough strength for fresh-kill."

Lion stumbled slightly down the hill. He landed with a load 'umph' and scrambled to his paws. "Mama, what's a pellet?"

"What's 'fresh-kill'?" asked Tiger, ears perked at the mention of food.

The she-cat purred, but merely gestured with her tail for them to follow. They padded up to the entrance and the she-cat pawed at the small cat door, holding it open for her kittens to scramble through. She walked in last, her white-tail tip disappearing inside.

The three kittens had stopped in the middle of the massive room, eyes wide as they looked around at the empty house. A hollowed out den on the other side of the room held the coals of an old fireplace. An old carpet still covered the floor, a circular pattern in the center having been clawed up multiple times. An old scent of a male cat hung in the air, but Mama quickly assured them that he was long gone, taken by his Twoleg owners.

She lead them to the back of the room, close to the fireplace. She pulled out a bowl, and pawed at the area behind it. Spottedkit peered over the rim, and stared at both the strange gold-brown-and-white she-kit reflected on the surface and through the murky water to the big fat ugly pellets underneath. She recoiled at the sight and gave the bowl a disgusted sneer.

"Do we have to eat this?" she asked.

"Not for you, kittens," Mama said with a purr. "Old soaked pellets and insect eggs will only give you a stomach ache."

She pulled out some soft kittypet food, wet but not disgusting. They had been laid aside for the kittens that very morning, by Mama herself. The kittens moved forward and gave the food a few sniffs. Spottedkit recognized the smell of fresh-kill, but she could say nothing in Dapples body. The other she-kit was in control, even though she was merely living her life from long ago.

"Eat, my sweets. I promise to find something better for you tomorrow."

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**End Chapter 2**

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******A/N**: Chapters 1-3 have been redone.


	3. Lion and Tiger

**Chapter 3**

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Winter had caved to spring and summer, hot and heavy, entered the forest with a vengeance. The early hot weather did not seem unusually to the kits, who had grown used to it over the last six moons.

"Come on, Spot," sneered Tiger, "pick up the pace back there, or you'll miss the early morning mice!"

"Just leave her," said Lion, ears flat. "She always gets the best mice."

Dapples blinked up from her tree stump, staring at the sky far above and ignoring the meows of her siblings. Something about the dark sky unnerved her, as if the dark clouds had a sinister purpose to them.

"Mama?" she meowed, swiveling her ears around. The brown-and-white she-cat emerged from underneath a bush, the old blue color having long lost its silver charm to the hard life of the forest. She padded silently up beside her daughter and followed her gaze to the sky.

"Yes, Dapples?" she purred.

"Why is the sky always so blue?"

The elder she-cat cocked her head curiously to the side. "You're missing out on fresh-kill for the sights, Dapples?"

The gold-and-brown-and-white seven month old she-cat ducked her head at her mother's strange tone. "Sorry," she choked out.

Surprised, the elder quickly amended her tone. "No, no, I believe you. I know exactly what you mean. It's like the dark sky should be filled with more than just the pale moon."

Dapples ears flickered in surprise and both she-cats returned their eyes to the sky. Blackness rolled out from behind the clouds, and a starless sky greeted them from where it hung above them, far far away.

* * *

Tiger growled softly as yet another squirrel dashed away. He lifted his head and tilted his ears, trying to hear his brother through the thickets. A slight whoosh of a pounce, and a flash of golden pelt told the dark tom that his brother was giving chase. Tiger smelled rabbit and frowned to himself. It seemed almost impossible for the dark ginger male to catch a decent sized catch. Even his smaller, runt of sister managed to get something larger than a mouse. And Tiger wasn't even good at catching the smaller things.

And, frankly, he didn't care much anymore. He padded away from his family and the forest, up a gently sloping gravel road to a small red Two-leg nest. He leaped up from the foot of the fence and clawed his way to the top. He coiled his powerful muscles and took in the massive garden, almost a territory in of itself.

"Are you there?" he called.

Suddenly, three streaks of fur bolted out from beneath a bush and shot up to the top of the fence to join him. He smirked inwardly, feeling his muscles flex as three pairs of awed eyes look at him. He gave a goofy grin at the one closes to him, a silver and white-spotted she-cat with bright blue eyes.

"Hello, Silver."

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**End Chapter 3**

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**A/N**: Chapters 1-3 have been redone. Sorry this Chapter is so short. -.-' They will get longer, promise!


	4. A Cabin Story pt 1

**A/N: Heyo! Here's a much longer chapter for you guys to digest!**

**Miryam Lea: Thank you so much for your review! I'm sorry if my first few chapters might be choppy and confusing. I hadn't been expecting my muse to pick up this story beyond the first two chapters (which were admittedly bad anyway). I HAVE gone over Chapter 2 and made it more clear, but I would like to know what confused you in Chapter 1. It could really help me make this better. **

**~S.I.S.**

**Disclaimer: I am not Erin Hunter. I do not own Warriors, and that includes Spottedleaf, Snowfur, Swiftbreeze, Adderfang, Featherwhisker, and any other non-OCs in my story.**

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**Chapter 4**

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That constant background noise of snow and darkness, which was pushed back by the distant and long dead world of the warmer past, suddenly took hold in Spottedkit's mind, bringing her into the present world. She coughed weakly as she stirred, lifting her head up to take in the familiar smells of her Clan life and the crystal clear sights of the medicine den. A massive grey lump crouched near to the entrance of the den, blocking the wind from reach her with his larger form and thicker fur. Winter raged on outside, whipping the forest around in its grip and covering it in a blanket of sharp, fresh snow.

A howling and cold wind suddenly blew into the Medicine cat den, buffeting against the large tom's shoulders and skittering around the small she-cat, dragging Spottedkit fully from the warmer reaches of her strange dream. The memory of the ancient she-cat's strength left her, abandoning her to the coughing sickness which had taken hold in her small and trembling body. Her stomach and chest hurt from overnight coughs and chills that she could not remember having, and she could not imagine the cause of her pain. She felt someone's warm coat pressed up against her, and she immediately registered that the starry and misty form was not her mother, or any clan cat she had ever smelt before, though it was still oddly familiar.

"He-hello?" she meowed. Her large eyes were met with twin pale blue ones, as wide and as white as the moon itself.

"_Do you not recognize me?_" asked the apparition in surprise, her tail-tip twitching on the other side of the kit. Strangely enough, the Medicine Cat did not move from his spot by the door, though his squinting eyes watched the starry queen's movements closely. He gave the appearance of staring off into space.

The she-kit stared for a moment longer, her eyes growing huge as recognition struck.

"You're Dapples' mom," she rasped, her throat sore.

"_Yes, I am,_" she purred, rubbing her phantom head against the small kit. She felt real and solid, even though when Spottedkit lifted a paw to bat at her fur, it swirled away into mist. "_Go to sleep, my kit, and you will learn my name._"

Either the illness had finally taken its toll on her or simply the last of her reserve strength had faded, Spottedkit gave a subdued nod and dropped her head weakly into her paws. A deep and all-embracing sleep entered her mind, and she dreamed.

* * *

Dapples still sat on the tree stump when Spottedkit rejoined her, merging with the unaware she-cat and sharing her body once more. Spottedkit could watch undetectable, as Dapples moved around unhindered in her ancient world. The young tortoiseshell-and-white turned her head slightly to address her mother.

"Mama," she asked, curiously, "why do you have that" - here, she put a paw on her own neck to indicate the blue collar on the other she-cat's throat- "on your neck?"

Surprised at the inquiry, the older cat pressed her chin into her neck fur to look down at the dirty and bloodied collar. Her eyes suddenly narrowed, and her clear blue optics clouded with memory. Guessing that her mother had some bad memory over the collar, Dapples shifted uncomfortably and opened her mouth to apologize when her mother stopped her.

"I suppose you're old enough to hear the tale now."

The callico frowned at her mother but tucked her paws beneath her chest in anticipation of a long story. Her mother told some of the most fascinating stories and, even though Dapples had nothing to compare them too, she knew her mother was the best storyteller in the whole woods. Somehow, she managed to tell her whole story in utmost detail, with the right tone of voice for each word and sentence and for each event in the story.

"Not here," said her mother suddenly, looking around at the woods. "Let's head back to the cabin."

Disappointed slightly, Dapples nodded and bounded after her mother, who had begun walking sedately in the direction of home. As they walked, Dapples couldn't help but wonder about her mother's past (and neither could Spottedkit) and she couldn't help but think back to their old home in the lean-to not far from the cabin. Where had they come from before? Who was their father? Why had they abandoned their old nest? Dapples couldn't really remember what her mother said, but Spottedkit did remember. She remembered that it had something to do with the rains coming.

When they reached the cabin's cat door, Dapple's mama pushed open the cat entrance with a paw to allow her smaller daughter to enter and she entered after her. The wooden cabin was the same lightly furnished place, abandoned and slightly more decayed than when Spottedkit remembered. Dapples quickly padded over to the center of the circular patterned carpet, as if hoping her own speed would quicken the world (and time) to get straight to the storytelling, while her mother followed at a more sedate pace. Her mother curled up beside her, wrapping her tail around her daughter as she began to share tongues with her, much to the younger cat's annoyance.

After a few moments of tolerating that, Dapples finally spoke up. "What about your collar, mama?"

Her mother stopped licking her daughter's ear and licked her lips, almost nervously, but Dapples couldn't tell why. She paused for a moment longer before she spoke in a subdued rumble. "I never did tell you the story of how your father and I first met, did I?"

Dapples shook her head, anticipation causing her body to shiver.

"I suppose that particular part of the story should be told another time, when your brothers are here," said the mother. "But I should at least tell you this."

The brown and white she-cat took a deep breath, as if preparing herself for what she was about to say. Dapples kept her mouth shut, leaning and listening intently to even the sound of her mother's tail-tip brush against the wooden floor. Finally, her mother began.

"Long ago, I lived in a forest a long ways from this one. There were many cats there who had their paws in two places in our world. They hunted in the forest during the night, and ate out of the Twoleg's bowls during the day. Few of our kind were accepted into the house as true kittypets, but to those of us in the wild, that little detail didn't matter. We thought our world was appropriately balanced, freedom and pleasure on all sides of the spectrum. Hunting at night, sleeping underneath the starless sky, and mewling to Twolegs for our daily does of fur-scratches. We blinded ourselves to the evil nature hiding beneath our homelands."

She paused and took a deep breath, before she forced herself to begin again. "I was born into this world, a mewling kit who quickly learned how much this world had been stacked against me. I had five siblings, two brothers and three sisters, and a mother who knew nothing." She said that last part with more than a little disdain, causing Dapples to shift uncomfortably at the new tone coming from her mother's mouth. "She carried us around to every little cubbyhole on the block. She migrated nearly every half-day, moving from underneath the human porch to the dog's old abandoned home to another spot underneath the edge of the fountain. All my brothers and sisters perished around me, all because she wouldn't stop moving us. If not for a passing Twoleg, I would have perished on my first journey outside the den. I simply could not stand being around that place of death any longer." Her eyes clouded over in pain as she sat there, and Dapples pressed her coat closer to her mother's, trying to radiate comfort for the grieving. Dapples couldn't help but think of her own brothers and her lost sister.

Spottedkit thought of Redkit and Willowkit. How would she have felt if her mother had kept moving around, leaving her kits to suffer and catch colds? She couldn't help but think of what might happen if Redkit or Willowkit died, like Dawn had died. She couldn't imagine her life without them and she felt a new wave of horror and sorrow for all the kits' lives who were lost because their mother did nothing.

"My Twoleg was among the most intelligent of Twolegs and he had a very fine older cat with him. From what I could tell of the short time I had known him, he was almost as old as I am now. He had seen over fourteen leaf-bares, and was growing grey in his muzzle. He accepted me as an apprentice and taught me not only how to live properly outside of the house but also gave me insight on how the Twolegs lived. He told me that they called themselves Humans, Wise Men, and that our owner was an Astrologist.

"I did not know what that meant, so I had let it be. I grew up around the Twoleg's house, watching all the curious little things he did, listening to the old tom teach me a few of Man's words, and I quickly grew to understand the human thought process. After two leaf-bares, the old tom died. He had been taken to the cutter, or vet as the human's say, and whatever the vets had given him had caused his system to crash. At least, that's what my owner told me and what I gathered from the vet. He had been a shivering mess when I last saw him, pressed up against the back of the couch for support, trying to say something though he could no longer speak and his eyes were so huge that I thought they would pop out of his sockets.

"I thought it would be like the coughing sickness, that I would get it too. I worried for my life for moons, hiding in the house and letting the world pass on outside. It was around this long period of time that the human got a mate. She was annoying, loud, and bossy. She wanted all of the master's attention, drawing his attention away from his things. It was she who insisted that I was given a tag and collar."

Dapples' mother touched her collar and the nearly unnoticeable thin band of metal which had once contained her tag and bell. "I left soon after that. I decided to leave all the Twolegs behind me soon after that and found my way through the forest. I taught myself how to hunt and survive and ended up eating my own share of carrion-food when times got tough. That's when I met the family in this cabin.

"They were old then and a younger Twoleg was taking care of them. They would always sit in this beds and converse non-stop or stare at the books with squiggles in them. I never entered the house, but the younger Twoleg left out some milk and pellets for me anyway. On desperate days, I'm ashamed to say that I indulged."

She paused again, staring at her paws, before she spoke again. "Then, they left. They took all their furniture and moved. The only thing I could remember about them, the only time they had ever mention their own plans with each other, was that one time they spoke of a factory. They said they wanted to move away from the factory to see the stars again. I remembered that word from the old tom. Humans had stories about gleaming lights in the sky and I had always wondered about such things myself. The sky was always too dark, too cloudy, for me every to see anything other than the moon on those few occasions it comes out, but deep down I knew what a star was. Almost as if I had seen one myself long ago, though I can't recall it."

She hesitated, eyes narrowed as she peered across the distant lands of memory. "There was an old story he used to talk about. Yes, it's coming back to me. It was about Tigers and Lions, and large cats with spots all over their fur..." she said, trailing off as she looked down at Dapples. "I remember when I decided to name you four."

Dapples felt her cheeks warm slightly in pleasure underneath her mom's warm gaze. She opened her mouth to say something but something interrupted her.

Rain water had already begun to fall from the sky, as dark as the clouds above. Something suddenly exploded from the cat door, golden fur damp and slightly darker with the rain. A soaked and dead rabbit dropped to the floor, followed by a long stream of curses.

"Mousebrain, Tiger! You should have told me you were already-!"

Lion stopped, taking a long look around as he realized that something was terribly and extremely wrong. Alerted to such stormy disaster, their mother surged to her paws, gazing at her eldest son with blazing blue eyes.

"Lion," she began, "where is Tiger?"

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**End Chapter 4**


	5. A Cabin Story pt 2

**A/N: **

**Miryam Lea: **Thank you! I didn't know that about stories within stories. The stories I read told their mini-stories outside of dialogue. Oh, and I _love_ cliffhangers. That's one of the things that I enjoy doing often (as long as I'm ready to post the second part within a few days). Can't stand forever-long cliffhangers.

**Goldenheart0209: **Both, actually. Spottedkit can see and hear with Dapples' eyes and ears, but she has no control over Dapples' thoughts and words. I didn't want it to be like Jayfeather/Jaywing, so I keep their thoughts separate and Dapples oblivious and uninfluenced by Spottedkit. And I don't mention Spottedkit when things are happening outside her and Dapples' ability to see and hear.

**Guest**: Of course Spottedkit was born in the clans. She's just looking through Dapples' eyes right now while her body is healing.

**Thank you ALL for your reviews.  
**

**~S.I.S.**

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**Chapter 5**

* * *

He had thought it was a good idea.

Traveling to their house had been easy enough and stealing some food pellets out from beneath their pitying noses had been a cinch, but he hadn't expected the residential litters of kits to actually want to join him on his journey back home. He had accepted their requests to travel with him, albeit after absorbing all their flattering words that made him feel more "brave" and "bold" for traversing the wildness (mostly) on his own. He had only begun the journey back to the cabin when the rains hit.

Much like the dirty, thick clouds overhead, the rainwater was dirty, thick and all shades of foul. Tiger quickly found the stench unbearable, but the persistent whine of his three followers only furthered to make the miserable show-off even more miserable.

"I don't like this," the black and white tom known as Raven and the only blood relation to Tiger's crush, Silver, whined. "It's all muddy and murky and the waters hurtin' my eyes..."

"Oh, hush," snapped the third in their number, a solid ginger female, with much more bite than necessary in her voice. "It's just water."

"But I don't _like_ it," Raven emphasized. "We should have stayed back home, where it's warm and dry. Karen wasn't such a bad housekeeper. After all, she did feed us and we did have a nice dry bed and warm fireplace to sleep by. Why did we have to go out here anyways?"

Tiger gritted his teeth, but refrained from answering. It hadn't been _his_ idea that these three kittypets follow him around the forest like ducklings. No, it was because of their insistence that they ended up here in the first place, their fur soaked through to the skin and the dirty water turning their coats all colors of drab. The dark ginger tabby, now darker because of the weaker, stormed forward at a fast pace, almost leaving the others in his dust.

Silver, the light grey and white-spotted she-cat with a voice as soothing and sweet as a bell, made his paws hesitate even with his tremendous desire to race on ahead to the cabin.

"Could you please slow down?" she meowed. "We can't see you well in this weather."

Tiger suddenly gave a warm smile, his irritation melting away beneath her beautiful bright, blue eyes. "Don't worry about it," he rumbled, "my home is not that far away now."

Silver smiled, reassured that at least their guide was not hopelessly lost. The truth was, though, Tiger was still looking for a landmark which he could use to tell him where he was. With rains having come, that feet was harder to accomplish than he first thought.

"I've heard stories about this rain," said Raven, his voice as "doom and gloom" as the clouds above them. "Some cats say it makes the trees wilt in the middle of summer, other say it poisons you, boiling you up from the inside out! We should be out here, in the rain. It's so dark and-and-and _cold_. We should turn back."

"Oh dry up, mousebrain," growled Blaze, her yellow eyes flashing. The ginger she-cat was equally ready to complain about all manner of things, including the weather, but Raven's tone had grown to the point of causing Blaze to snap. "You asked to come on this stupid journey, now didn't you?" she sneered, her bark having grown nasty. "So, why don't you just shut yer gob and button you lip, or whatever a little whiner like yerself does to _stow it_."

Raven's expression turned injured for a second, before he suddenly did all those things and more as he straightened up. He was not about to stand around and be insulted by _Blaze_ of all cats. He about faced and bunched his haunch up to leap back toward the way they'd come when the bushes in front of him rustled. Startled and suddenly frightened, the black and white tom twisted around again and leaped forward, slamming into Tiger's backside and shoving him straight into a growing mud puddle.

Angered, Tiger whipped around to confront the would be owner of a couple of scratches, but stopped dead in sudden horror as he spotted just exactly what had appeared behind Raven's back.

* * *

Furious, outraged, and angry beyond belief, the brown and white queen known as Tiger's mother thundered into the forest without so much as checking his scent trail. She already knew exactly where the young tom had gone, having scented him around the red Twoleg house moons ago on one of her own secret patrols. She had met the caretaker of the three litters of kits which were housed in that little garden and knew very well what had happened to the kittens' mothers and fathers. She cursed herself for not having told Tiger before about what dangers the red Twoleg house meant for kittens like him.

Of course, when it came to Silver, even if the queen had told her kits about the caretaker's purpose in man's life, Tiger would have still gone to meet them. The queen suspected such chemistry had occurred between her middle child and the bastardized eldest of the smallest litter, but she could not possibly suspect just how pure that chemistry truly was. Not yet, anyway.

Her paws suddenly stopped pounding against the puddled forest ground as she lifted her head and perked her ears toward a nearly imperceptible sound. Imperceptible only because of the rain.

Another animal was running through the forest, something loud and clumsy and of no threat to the old queen. However, considering just _who_ she was looking for and exactly what she suspected of him doing, she knew that that sound, or whatever was making it, would lead her to her lost son. She pinpointed the oncoming creature's location in record time and ducked down beneath a bush to wait for the creature to appear.

Slipping and sliding, tumbling and splashing, the silhouette of a young cat appeared from beneath a prickly bush. She shoved her head out from beneath the bush and scrambled for purchase against the wet mud to crawl forward. She succeeded, with much butt wiggling and squirming. Before she could head into yet another headlong dash through the forest, the queen abandoned her cover and leaped on her, claws carefully sheathed as she pressed her paw against the small she-cat and into the mud.

"Speak! Who are you?" she growled.

Frightened, scared and heart still pounding from the mad dash through the woods, the light brown she-cat whimpered beneath the furious pale blue eyes.

"He-earth," she stammered.

The queen brought her face closer to the she-cat's and released the smaller cat's shoulder. At this distance, her pale blue eyes show clearly through the murky rain. "I am looking for a dark ginger tom named Tiger. Do you know where he is?"

Hearth quickly gathered her paws beneath her, and gave a short nod once she realized that the old cat wasn't going to lunge at her. "Y-yeah, he was le-leading my sis-ister and den-mates into the forest."

The queen noted that Hearth had neglected to mention what she was doing in the forest, but chalked that up for a question to ask later. "Quickly," she ordered the she-cat, "show me which way they went."

The dirt-colored she-cat gestured with her paw and the queen immediately leaped forward in that general direction, forcing Hearth to either stay behind and become lost or pick up her normal pace in order to keep up.

At full run, they barreled right through the bushes which Raven had been about to dash through, and were instantly greeted by the astonished and slightly muddy four cats.

* * *

Tiger opened his mouth to say something, but he was immediately cut off, and very much grateful of that.

"Who are you?"

Blaze looked the old cat up and down with a hint of disdain. She had just suffered through a long trek through the wet and grimy forest and was probably lost between nowhere and a rock, and she was of the highest opinion that this forest was a waste of her time. The arrival of the seemingly old she-cat only seemed to further send her opinion of the forest into the deepest, darkest drains.

But, unfortunately perhaps for Tiger, or Blaze, or perhaps both, the old she-cat wasn't willing to deal with the obviously opinionated and the obvious bad-attitude of the she-cat in any way, shape, or form of a good mood. With her pale blue eyes blazing and her claws unsheathed, she pushed her way forward and stood before the she-cat with a barely concealed snarl.

"I," she growled, "am Tiger's _mother_, mousebrain. And unless you lot want to die of acid rain, I suggest you shut your traps and follow my words to the letter."

Unimpressed, Blaze looked the she-cat straight in the eyes with a bored expression of her own. "Oh, and why would I listen to you?"

The mocha she-cat which was following the queen stepped forward. "Uh, Blaze, you don't want to do that. Really."

With a curled lip, Blaze took her sister's word for it and opted to remain silent, though secretly glared at the old cat's backside as she rounded upon her child.

"How many times have I told you to hunt within our territory and to not visit kittypets, regardless of how pretty you think they are?"

Tiger mumbled his answer into his chest, feeling his ears heat with embarrassment as his friends watched on. She didn't give him time to answer.

"Get your tail in gear and head back to the cabin. We will discuss your failure to obey once we get back. And you and your friends should probably move with all speed."

"Why should we be in such a hurry? It's just rain."

Cold blue eyes turned disdainfully on a light grey and white-spotted coat with brighter, clearer blue eyes. The two she-cats gazed at each other coldly, but only one of them had the experience and strength to back up her words with bite.

"Actually," said the queen, her voice having gone cold and soft as her anger reached a cold and deadly level, one which Tiger immediately recognized. "Just take your other friends with you."

Tiger knew exactly what would happen if he left, but he also knew that no amount of begging or pleading would stop his mother from inflicting whatever forth coming punishment that waited in store for Tiger's crush. In all reality, Tiger's fear of his mom won out over his kitten love for the quiet she-cat. He turned on his heel and lead the cats back the way that Hearth and his mother had come.

The two she-cats sat opposite each other in the pouring rain, with the smaller and younger she-cat growing increasingly uncomfortable the further her guide and guard ran away. She grew even more uncomfortable as the old queen rose to her paws and approached with a gracefulness which sent shivers down her spine.

"Let me tell you a little story about a little bit of rainwater and a tiny kit called Dawn..."

* * *

Dapples and Lion waited in the slightly cold interior of the cabin, protected from the chilling and murky rain by the well-built cabin ceiling. They crouched together murmuring to each other, worrying over the location of their missing brother and wondering what troubles the irrepressible and irresponsible dark tom had gotten himself into today.

They were interrupted by the cat door exploding open and a grey and white blur skidding across the room and into the corner, fur fluffed up into spikes and giving the impression that the-whatever-it-was was twice it's normal size. Two huge blue saucer-shaped eyes stared out from all that spiky wet fluff, the only recognizable part of the cat beneath it all.

Tiger and the other young cats tumbled in afterwards, eyes huge as they tried to piece together the whirlwind which had just blown past them and barely recognizable sight of the terrified cat which had once been the calm, beautiful and quiet she-cat known as Silver. The old she-cat came in soon afterwards, dripping in rain and sinking her claws into the wooden floor.

"And that, my dear she-cat, is why you do not stay outside during the rain."

Silver crouched in the corner, her flanks stinking from both her new wounds - the mark of the queen's "tough love" - and the sting of the acid rain in her wounds. She struggled between the pain and the shock of the sudden and violent attack and the queen's strange story which had come before it. She couldn't completely wrap her mind around it, too unsettled by everything to realize one important fact.

She was alive.

* * *

**End Chapter 5**

* * *

**A/N: A Cabin Story Part 2 of 3 complete. This is probably the last update I'll be able to do this week. Pray for a Monday update.  
**

**A poll has been opened regarding this story. Please check it out.**


	6. A Cabin Story pt 3

**A/N**: WARNING! The following contains cats, lions, tigers, and references to the Great Cat Clans.

**Miryam Lea**: I don't know how many times I've told you; Thank you so much for your review! It's all because of reviewers like you that makes me feel like my stories are actually worth writing (albeit this is the only story I've written so far). As for Silver, well, she's got something coming up.

**Disclaimer: I am not Erin Hunter. I do not own Warriors, and that includes Spottedleaf, Snowfur, Swiftbreeze, Adderfang, Featherwhisker, LionClan, TigerClan, and any other non-OCs in my story.**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Tension like lightning crackled in the still air over the five unlucky cats. A chalky white powder covered the drenched cats, neutralizing the acidic properties of the rain. Because of the horrendous smell of the combined chalky substance and rain, none of the cats dared to lick themselves clean.

Lion and Dapples, spared from the looming wrath of their mother, crouched close together and far away from their brother and the four strangers. From her position behind Dapples' eyes, Spottedkit could only sense the strange and growing pride which swelled in the she-cats chest and somehow seemed to migrate over the years into Spottedkit's own. The three cats watched in silent anticipation, listening and waiting for the storm that would finally be unleashed.

"...and to think you had to prove your point by bringing these young cats here with you!" the queen said, finishing a long tirade. "Have you _not_ been listening to one word I'm saying? You cannot find any satisfaction by bringing out your friends into this accursed rain, only for them to die! There is no dignity in drowning yourself in a rainstorm to prove your point! After all, you cannot argue if you are dead, and doing what you are doing now makes your point _invalid_."

Most of this words flew right over their combined heads, but the message seemed to sink in - at least, to everyone except Tiger.

Angry, his confidence somewhat bolstered by the presence of his audience and his past respect for his mother push aside, he took that moment to take a stand.

"I don't see anything bed because of a little rainwater," he said, jaw stuck forward arrogantly. "It doesn't hurt me."

"Oh?" the queen asked, her voice having gone dangerously soft for the second time that day. The fur along her neck bristled. "Maybe, if you won't listen, you will _see_."

She whipped around and began padding to the back of the cabin, an area which every-cat recognized as the source of the white chalky substance. She paused to gesture with a sweep of her tail to the children, including Lion and Dapples. Then, she disappeared.

Lion and Dapples looked at each other and shared a silent question and shrug. At the same time, they both started to their feet and padded toward the spot where she had disappeared. The other cats had much different reactions.

Blaze, her curiosity of the old-cat perked after that little stunt with Silver, decided that wherever the she-cat might go, it would be much more interesting than hanging around in an empty Cabin. While her little sister, not wanting the only person in her little world that protects her to disappear, quickly followed suit. Silver hesitated a moment longer, but the sight of Blaze's strong and determined strides disappearing quickly compelled her to act. Tiger, after taking a moment to get over his own growing misgivings about his mother, followed his crush down the tunnel. Suddenly finding himself alone and unprotected, Raven quickly followed after them.

Dapples had managed to squeeze down the hole in the wall a little ahead of Lion and found herself walking on soft, airy moonsand. She could not see it's color in the dark, but she remembered the smell of the chalky substance on the other cats to be able to tell what it was. The slightly smooth and soft surface gave way beneath her paws, and the heavy stench of the moonsand covered any scent of her mother's earlier passage. Even though she could hear her mother inches ahead of her, somehow she could only smell the dust and powder around her, and it did not sit very well with her.

It was a long walk, one which would normally have made the young cat's paws ache, but the soft powder cushioned each footfall and padded each step so it felt like they were walking on air. Darkness seemed to only confirm that thought, and one or two of them actually imagined for an instant that the darkness and white powder combined on the walls into some form of sparkly blackness. It was eerie and quiet, but soft and comforting at the same time. It reminded Spottedkit of a familiar winter sky, when all the stars came out into the heavens to comfort those lives lost in the white snow.

A light up ahead alerted them to the old she-cats waiting silhouette and they all picked up their pace. A strange yellow-white light came from beyond the exit to the tunnel, but they could not smell anything other than the chalky substance surrounding them. They quickly gathered around her shadowy form and found that this end of the tunnel was much larger, wider and round than any other part before it.

Seeing them all gathered around, the queen spoke, her tone oddly wistful. "Have you ever seen the trees so green? Have you every seen the water so clean? Have you felt the leaves and the trunks and the roots? Have you ever seen a leaf so green?" And with that small bit of poetry, she turned and padded into the light, disappearing beyond.

For once, Dapples and Spottedkit shared the same amount of apprehension for what lay beyond. They looked at the entrance with no small amount of confusion and foreboding, but a glance from Lion seemed to quickly quell that. With an amused and unconcerned shrug, the sand-colored mottled tom disappeared into the white and yellow light. Pausing only a second more, Dapples followed. On beholding the site before, Dapples gave a gasp of shock.

In days when the rain would not come and the clouds had parted for one of those rare moments when the moonlight could shine through the greenish-tinged glass of the greenhouse, the green and white summer wonderland would look and feel as surreal as any sight in the world could get. The premature blanket of powdery and strange warm snow contrasted deeply with the rich and fertile brown soil and massive broad leaves of the towering young oak. It's spreading branches hung over the surreal landscape like a towering mountain of the deepest and richest green any of the young cats had ever seen before in their lives. Today, a strange spot light shown up on the tree trunk, the white and yellow glow causing the powerful landmark to look even more surreal than any moonlight. Never before had such a mixture of colors been composed together in one place by mother nature herself, except by the most imaginative and creative of thinkers.

A cat's shadow fell over the massive tree trunk, and the queen used that moment to catch every cat's attention. But instead of a long story as her own children were expecting, or at least an explanation, she merely meowed: "Feel the truck, taste the leaves, drink the water."

Impressed by the display, most of the young cats had no idea what to think or do, but at least her words stirred some action from her eldest son. Lion padded eagerly forward and looked around questioningly on the ground for water. A long metal pipe stretched the entire length of the greenhouse, along the farthest parts of the tree's "cage", where the white powder met rich soil. A bowl had already been pressed closely beneath the pipe and contained more than just a day's worth of water. Obviously someone had been visiting this place regularly to drink the water.

Lion glanced at his mother for only a moment, before he dipped his head down to drink in the precious liquid. It splashed easily onto the floor, and coated his whiskers until they seemed drenched with morning dew. He stepped back, licking his lips of the delicious liquid and purring in pleasure at the taste.

"It's good," he meowed.

Encouraged by her brother, Dapples took a drink. From Spottedkit's point of view, as the liquid wet her tongue and slid down her mouth, it tasted like normal water. But to a cat who had drank nothing but specific types of sludge her whole life, it tasted like ambrosia. Dapples licked her lips and almost managed to get a second drink when Blaze's ghost-like head pushed her aside and hungry lapped at the liquid. A hiss from Lion chased them both away, allowing a curious Hearth and timid Raven to get a drink.

As every cat drank their fill, Dapples found herself pushed further and further away from the bowl. Licking her lips in disappointment and promising to come back at a latter date, she migrated away from the group and lay down near the entrance, giving her a clear view of her mother. She could simply feel a story getting ready to be told, and she wouldn't miss this one for the world.

But, much to her disappointment, their business in the greenhouse would soon come to a close. After everyone had drank what they wanted or needed, they poked and probed the tree to Lion's and the queen's encouragement, before she headed for the tunnel. They were forced to follow, back through the dark and sparkly tunnel. Dapples stayed back, allowing Tiger and his friend's to enter first. Lion padded up last, licking another drink of water from his lips.

"Lion?" she asked, drawing his attention.

He looked at her in surprise and flicked his ears in her direction. "Yeah?"

Dapples licked her own lips, whether from a thirst for more water or nervousness, none of them could tell. "Did you know about this before?"

The sand-colored cat shook his head. "No," he said. Then, he narrowed his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

The calico shrugged it off. "Oh, no reason." She headed for the tunnel.

Lion watched her with curiosity as she disappeared into the tunnel. He looked back toward the tree and around the greenhouse, as if soaking in the sights for one last time, before he followed after her.

* * *

Even with that short exchange, things could happen in the cabin house of the Cabin cats. The queen, with some help from Tiger, managed to wrestle the four strangers into a group that sat or lay around her in the center of the Cabin. The queen had already taken the deep breath that began one of her many stories.

"It happened a very long time ago," she said, "on a winter night much like this one. Many twinkling lights hung in the heavens in an empty black sky. And, on the earth, were three great family of cats. There was LionClan, a clan of noble and courageous warriors with coats of sand, mud and flame. There was TigerClan, a clan of swimming cats and clever thinkers with coats of black tabby stripes and blood-red, or blue, or white. And, there was LeopardClan, the most diverse of all the Clans.

"But things were not always that way. LeopardClan was once a family of pure-black cats with only a hint of silver spots in their fur. They did not have the beautiful tabby stripes which marked the descendents of TigerClan, nor the pure, solid colors of LionClan. They were without any great beauty, and they were jealous.

"One day, LeapardClan cat looked up into the night sky and saw just how beautiful the stars were as they twinkled in the darkness of Silverpelt's coat. He asked himself, 'Why does every Clan but our own have such wondrous coats?' Jealously overcame him and he hatched a plan to find his Clan a perfect coat.

"A few weeks later, LeopardClan suddenly spouted the most wondrous coats, and the most diverse to. They had spots that were black, white or brown, with golden coats surrounding them and beautiful black and gold tails behind them. They were so proud of their beautiful coats that they showed their coats to the other Clans. They did not receive the reactions they were expecting.

"TigerClan knew immediately when the stars were stolen from the sky, and they knew that LionClan could not have done such a horrendous deed. Their eyes turned to LeaopardClan and their new coats only proved their theory. They were both outraged and tremendously jealous of the new look. TigerClan and LionClan both decided that, in order to put the stars back into the heaven, LeopardClan had to leave."

A silence met her words. The queen's eyes were hood in thought, but she cleverly weighed each reaction as they came to her.

"So, LeopardClan was chased out. Many leaf-bares passed, and still the stars did not appear in the heavens. LionClan and TigerClan disappeared, perhaps in search of LeopardClan or a solution to the star problem. But, both were gone.

"LeopardClan had not known how diverse their bloodline had become. Over the seasons, after many generations, they became smaller. They had TigerClan's tabby stripes, LionClan's pure fur, and mottled-pelts and spotted-pelts and pelts of all different colors. These cats because us."

The stunned silence which followed seemed to echo. Every cat present tried to digest that, trying to tie in what they knew about cats into the story.

Spottedkit would have blinked if she were able. She recalled the same Clans from stories she heard in the elder's den, except she had never heard any of their stories mention this before. She wondered for a moment why the queen would even mention such a story. And she wasn't the only one.

"What does that have to do with us?"

The queen caste her pale blue eye on the ginger she-cat. Blaze did not back down, and the queen answered.

"Because we are the direct descendents of LeopardClan," she said. "Our pelts hold the light of the stars."

Her words were met with silence and she rose to her paws, drawing their attention if she didn't have it already. "If we are to die for another cat, if we are to sacrifice everything we are for the lives of another, if we put others before us, and if we die in the attempt..." she said, looking up at the ceiling, "we can finally take our rightful place in the sky."

Every cat looked up, eyes wide. They all felt the strange feeling, a similar feeling to the one they had felt in the tunnel, a feeling of comfort and of eeriness. Of belonging.

The black and white tom suddenly rose to his paws, his eyes suddenly fixated on the queen.

"Who... are you?" he asked.

She remained quiet for a moment, before uncurling her tail from around her paws.

"My name," she said, "is Destiny."

* * *

**End Chapter 6**

* * *

**A/N: **A Cabin Story pt 3 of 3 complete. Next up: Home is Where the Heart is, pt 1.

So, the queen kept her promise. Yep. Spottedkit knows her name now.

Okay, I know some people won't understand Lion's actions. Unlike both Tiger and Dapples, Lion _respects _and_ trusts_ Destiny. Even if he didn't know why Destiny told him to do something, he'd still do it. His trust in Destiny is synonymous with Firestar's trust in StarClan.

Yeah, I put a lot of parallelism and symbolism in here. Moonsand, the tunnels, and the oak tree being the main ones. Moonsand and the tunnels combined represents the life after a cat dies and goes to StarClan, while the Oak tree represents the land of which (I believe) lies in store for the Cats of StarClan who don't want to become reincarnated.

Anyway, that's my three cents in this one. Sorry about the long wait, guys. My computer's having technical difficulties, I'm getting all my stuff ready for college and I'm also doing a lot of stuff on Fanfiction's forums.

S.I.S.


	7. Home and Heart pt 1

**A/N**: I forgot to mention that the poll is still up. It'll stay up until the end of this fic, which is about five to six chapters away. Maybe more.

Please, Read & Review!

~S.I.S.

* * *

**Chapter 7**_  
Home is Where the Heart is, pt 1  
_

The dull green forest echoed with the twittering of birds and the soft paw steps of a cat on the hunt. Her dark ginger fur brushed against the dull green and yellows and reds, rustling the brittle and dying leaves and alerting her prey.

He sat in the sent of a pool of liquid gold, gently and calmly licking his paw pads and his mottled, sand-colored fur. Twin amber eyes stared out from hooded lenses as his ears swiveled in their sockets, listening keenly to the sound of his approaching attacker. Long white claws flickered out of their sheaths, gleaming slightly in the sunlight.

The hunter padded forward, coat rippling and muscles shifting. She crouched low, yellow eyes gleaming steadily in the forest. She shifted on her paws, preparing to pounce. In an explosion of green and red, Blaze barreled out of hiding, lunging for the tom's unprotected backside.

The more experienced cat quickly rolled around, firing his hind paws into the air and catching Blaze in the stomach, sending her sailing over his head. With a loud "umph!" she crashed into the ground, scrambling to regain her paws. The tom shot forward, pinning her beneath his paws.

"You're too noisy, you hestitated too long, and you're attacks are too predictable!" he admonished, with a slight snarl. He was growing increasingly tired of the same old mistakes. "How many times must we go over this before you get it right?"

Blaze frowned into the dirt. It was the third time this week, ever since she started training with Lion. "I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!" she protested.

There was a moment of silence as the tom thought that over, before he lifted his restraining hold on Blaze. "Show me your stalk."

Her frown deepening, Blaze pulled herself from the dirt and crouched low into what she thought a hunter's crouch was.

"Ah," said Lion, in realization. "You've got the right stance, but your using the wrong technique. You see, a cat will hear you before he feels the vibration of your paws on the ground. Don't act as if you are stalking a mouse; act as if you are stalking yourself."

Blaze thought that over, trying to delve meaning from his words. He couldn't actually mean stalking herself literally, so it had to mean something else. Before she could figure out the answer, Lion interrupted her thoughts.

"Now, let's try that again and actually get it right this time."

The ginger she-cat nodded in understanding and stalked off into the forest. This time, as she circled around, she tried to think of herself in Lion's position. What would she be looking out for if she thought a cat was stalking her in the forest?

As realization struck, she shifted into a different stalking stance and silently, stealthily, melded in with the shadows. Almost perfectly, she vanished into the forest, sniffing her way to Lion's new location. She'd get him this time, she promised herself...

* * *

A few months had passed since the story of the ancient Clans, and the age was starting to show on Destiny's silver-tinged muzzle. Lion and Tiger had taken over instructing the four new cats, as well as other duties outside of the Cabin and Greenhouse which Destiny normally attended to. These days, while the four kittypets learned how to hunt and fight and otherwise survive in the wild, Destiny taught Dapples and Spottedkit new things in the art of healing. Destiny, as if secretly knowing her time was short, was becoming more distant from the other cats, often sitting alone in the Greenhouse when the moon was out or in the middle of the tunnel when the storms came.

Today, the group of young kitty-pets-turned-apprentices hung around the center of the cabin, unease rippling through their pelts as they awaited further instructions from their tutors. Though Lion seemed nice enough, his methods were harsher than Tiger's and had a tendency to cause injury unless they did things _the right way_. On the other hand, Tiger's apparent uncaring outlook onto the training sessions only seemed to encourage dissent, especially from Silver.

"Why am I doing this?" she complained, having replaced Raven as the whiner of the group. She gave Dapples a nasty look. "Why can't I do whatever _she's_ doing?"

"We've been through this, Silver," meowed Lion, keeping the annoyance from his voice and in check. "If you can learn to separate voles from shrews, maybe we'll let you organize the herbs."

The normally designated complainer kept his mouth shut, only glancing in Dapples' direction when he thought she wasn't looking. She wasn't, but Lion was, and he kept his mouth quiet on the issue.

"Right," said Tiger, as if trying to cover up Silver's nastiness with his own brash eagerness to_ get this over with_. "Let's see two of you duke it out together. Show us what you've learned."

Lion smiled, agreeing with his brother. "Right. Blaze, Silver, you're up."

The ginger she-cat burst forward with a level of glee and eagerness that contrasted greatly with Silver's, who managed to give the appearance of both walking forward and dragging her heels into the ground behind her. Blaze's yellow eyes flashed as she practically bounced onto her spot and dropped into a ready stance, her tail swishing around eagerly. Silver inched forward slowly and crouched, her paws tucked underneath her as she looked at the bristling ginger cat with more than a little bit of trepidation.

"This isn't fair!" she said, hoping her words might be able to get through and prevent the inevitable battle. "She's got more strength than I do and -!"

"FIGHT!" shouted Lion, barreling over Silver's words and eager to see his prize pupil finally in action.

Blaze leaped forward with such energetic glee that the sight made Silver ready to wet herself. Sheathed ginger claws aimed toward Silver's pelt, as if her claws _were_ out and prepared to slash through Silver's semi-perfect coat. Yelping, Silver shut her eyes tightly, jerked her head back, and curled her tail tighter around herself.

"STOP!"

Tiger's voice cut through Blaze's desire for battle like a knife and she barreled harmlessly into Silver, quickly pulling herself away in disgust. She made a growling comment at the cowering spotted cat - "She didn't even try!" - before returning to her position in the ranks.

Lion looked perturbed that his training session had been interrupted, but kept visible displeasure to a bare minimum. He turned questioningly to his brother, who looked slightly angry and chagrined at himself for interrupting.

"W-we should just pair her with Raven or Hearth," Tiger meowed, as if trying to cover up his sudden outburst.

If anything, that answer only seemed to make Lion more unsatisfied. "Hearth and Raven are not as skilled as Silver or Blaze. Silver and Blaze are the best match."

"No, they are not," Tiger said, defending his crush. "Blaze is almost as good as you now, and Silver is only as good as Dapples."

That wasn't exactly true, and Lion could see the stupidity in that statement. Dapples was more experienced than Silver and, though Blaze was more ferocious than either Silver or Dapples, their sister could easily knock the ginger she-cat off her paws. She could have once done the same to Lion, except he had gotten a little clever with his techniques.

As if her name had summoned her from out of nowhere, Dapples took that moment to add her two cents in. "If you think she's so good, why don't you fight her?"

Tiger opened his mouth and shut it, aware that whatever he said regarding his own skills would only make things worse. So, he rose to his paws and got off his high horse to face Blaze, allowing Silver to slink off to her spot in line.

"Right," said Lion, raising his voice so that the others could hear. "Tiger against Blaze. You know the rules: Claws sheathed, don't break the skin, and no love taps."

Blaze gave an angry huff at that last part. As if she would be so gentle with the stuck up dark ginger tabby. When both cats nodded in agreement, Lion sucked in a big breath.

"BEGIN!"

Instantly, Blaze lunged. Just like with Silver, she had her paws forward to prepare to swipe at Tiger's pelt. Though his hunting skills were not up to par, Tiger was a decent fighter. He dodged Blaze's forward and obvious attack easily enough, striking back with a swipe of his paw and hitting Blaze in the shoulder. Off-balanced, Blaze landed awkward, allowing Tiger to leap upon her. But Blaze was quick, and she rolled out of the way of the pounce. She had trained with Lion hard just to match the sand-colored cat in skills, and those long nights of training were starting to pay off.

Unfortunately for Tiger, his skills and muscles were not as up to it as he thought. He turned to pounce again, but Blaze was waiting for him. The instant his feet left the ground, she rolled on her back and kicked her paws up and out, slamming into his chest and sending Tiger flying ungracefully overhead. He landed chest first into the ground with a loud "umph!"

Lion grinned, a warm feeling sprouting through his chest as he realized that his hard work had come to fruition. He padded over to his defeated brother with a smidgen of smugness decorating his lips.

"Perhaps she should replace you on our hunting patrols."

Tiger's ears flattened against his head, his pride and his dignity just shot to heck. He said nothing as he rose to his paws, dusted himself off and returned to watch over the training session, his mouth shut as he observed Lion's harsh treatment of Silver. As he watched Blaze easily knock Silver off her paws and pin the cat down, Tiger could not help but wonder, w_hy was everyone picking on Silver?_

* * *

A/N: Next up: Home is Where the Heart is pt 2


	8. Home and Heart pt 2

**A/N:** NOTE TO ALL: Chapter 1-3 have been rehashed, re-edited, and updated. You don't have to go back and read it to understand the rest of the story, but if you ever do go back and discover the sudden change... well, now you know what happened. :)

**All of the Author's comments on reviews have been moved to the bottom of the page. It will continue that way from now on.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 8**  
Home is Where the Heart is, pt 2

* * *

The cool cabin air stirred slightly against the roasting summer breeze. A small fresh-kill pile had been set up in the center of the cabin, and the cats were gathered around for sharing tongues. Dapples watched Tiger from afar, only partially keeping an ear on her mom's explanation of the difference between death berries and holly berries. A sudden jabbing paw in her side drew her attention away from the dark ginger tabby.

"Haven't you been listening?" the old cat asked, slightly annoyed. The only reason she had bothered to start these lessons with Dapples was because she sensed in a Dapple not only an interest in the missing stars but also an interest in all cat life. "This is very important."

The calico frowned and flattened her ears in a slight apology. "I know, mom. I just can't help thinking about the training session yesterday."

"Oh?" asked the old female, an invitation to elaborate.

"Well, remember how Lion was treating Silver?" Dapples asked, gesturing to the dark ginger tabby not far away. "And how Tiger reacted?"

Destiny frowned but nodded, as Dapples continued. "Well, I guess, what I'm trying to say is... _why_ was Lion picking on Silver?"

The old she-cat blinked. "Well, it's the same thing happening between you and Raven."

Dapples blinked, confused. "What's happening between me and Raven?"

When she realized that her daughter was oblivious, she gave a sigh. "_Love_, though now I'm thinking that's not a broad enough term."

"Love?" asked Dapples, trying to tie that to her and Raven's relationship. She could not see it. "What do you mean?"

The old queen sighed, murmuring something along the lines of "It's always the smart ones who never figure it out" beneath her breath. Exasperated, she gestured to Tiger.

"Tiger loves Silver," she said simply. "Blaze and Lion _like_ each other. Raven likes you."

Dapples cocked her head in confusion. "But you were saying a moment ago that Raven and I had 'love'?"

"Not '_had love'_," said Destiny, trying to contain her laughter, "are '_in love_'. Though I'm not sure you even like him."

"Not sure if I like Raven?" she echoed, bewildered.

Destiny chuckled, but nodded. Then, she grew serious. "Your brother, Tiger, loves Silver. He would protect her with his life, with no second thought about it. Silver knows this, and she's using that to her advantage. Lion _knows_ that Silver _knows_." Destiny paused. "Do you understand what I'm getting to?"

"Not really," said Dapples. She felt she was getting a better idea, but her mind was failing to put the pieces together. "What does Blaze have to do with it?"

Destiny paused to consider that. "When Blaze first met Tiger, I think she immediately recognized the show off for what he was. It was her first impression of a wildcat, and she assumed all wildcats were like Tiger. She assumed that up until the point where she met me." Destiny paused, allowing that to sink in.

"When you attacked Silver?" Dapples asked.

The old she-cat snorted, her brown-and-white pelt slightly bristling. "I would necessarily call it _attacking_, but yes.

"So, Blaze was impressed. When we were talking together, when we had returned from the greenhouse, she had asked me if she would be allowed to stay. I told her 'you can stay or leave whenever you chose, but I would suggest you stay until the rains go'." Destiny paused, as if taking a moment to allow her old memory to clear. "She was the first to decide to stay and, that night, she confronted me about training. She had heard from Tiger, through all his talk about being a great fighter, about training to become a better hunter. She had ambitions about becoming the best. I pointed her toward Lion. That's when someone asked about the clouds - Raven, I think - and the darkness beyond them. And I told them the story of the Ancient Clans."

"I remember that part," said Dapples, pleased that she was finally on the right hypothetical page.

"Yes," said Destiny. "I believe Blaze went to Lion shortly after Tiger left with the others. Somewhere along the lines, when they actually started sessions together, Lion became impressed with her. Perhaps it was her dedication to learning of his skills or her natural talent in of itself." Destiny shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure."

Dapples thought about it. "Is love always like that?"

The old she-cat purred. "Love is like Tiger's feelings for Silver. Lion and Blaze just like each other. It hasn't developed into anything more."

The tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat mumbled an "oh" as she looked over towards Tiger. He was sitting near the fresh-kill pile, chomping down on another mouse his brother had caught. Blaze and Lion were sharing tongues on the other side of the cabin, probably talking about training. Silver and Raven, brother and sister, sat together beyond Tiger, sharing tongues over a shared rabbit.

"Did I answer you question?"

Dapples turned to look at her mother. "Oh? Um, which question?"

"The one about why Lion did what he did?"

"Oh," said Dapples. "No, I think you just have me the back story."

Destiny sighed. "I was hoping you might figure it out for yourself." Then, she began. "Lion likes Blaze, and they've been training for a while now. Tiger loves Silver, and has been neglecting his duties to tend to her every beck and call. Lion knew Tiger would have to come to grips with that - either with his lack of training and exercise or with the fact that Silver is using him. Rather than break his heart, Lion chose to deal with Tiger's training issue." Destiny shook her head.

"You didn't agree with his decision?" asked Dapples.

"Better to break his heart now," Destiny half-mumbled, "rather than break his pride and allow her to break his heart later. But, of course, Lion had support from Blaze and thought that was enough."

Dapples frowned at her mother, feeling sorry for the old queen. Her possibly last litter of kits would be leaving her to go grow up, or she might be leaving _them_ sometime soon.

Suddenly, Dapples was reminded of how old and frail she looked. Even the hard muscles of a warrior still shown through her short-haired pelt. It would not be long before she left them to join Dawn.

"Mom?" she said, eliciting a "yes?" from the old cat. "What were you saying? About 'death berries'?"

* * *

**End Chapter 8**

* * *

**Miryam Lea: (Chap 6) That comment actually got me to thinking about my first three chapters. I went back and realized how confusing they were and I decided to rehash them all. XD It was fun and I really liked adding Adderfang into it more. ****(Chap 7) ****Funny, I actually haven't read that book yet. Oh, and I hope this chapter explains Lion, Silver, Blaze and Tiger's relationship a little. **

**A/N: **Next up: Home is Where the Heart is, pt 3


	9. Home and Heart pt 3

**Chapter 9**  
Home is Where the Heart is, pt 3

* * *

The moonlight shown through the warped, greenish window sils that made up the dome ceiling. Water continued to leak from the pipes and into the bowl and onto the floor, clearing out even larger puddles for the cats to drink from. Mice and squirrels moved about here freely and undisturbed, even underneath the threat of hunters in the night. This was the only plentiful source of food in the forest.

The two would-be hunters sat bathing in the combined glow of the moon and the spot light with illuminated the tree trunk. The silvery grey and spotted white coat of the female gleamed slightly in moonlight, while her brother's black and white coat refused to glow. Instead, it shown in his eyes as he gazed up at the sky.

Silver licked her own coat in pride as it gleamed in the sunlight.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Raven.

"Yes, it is," purred Silver, but paused when she realized Raven's attention was still on the moon. "Well, for a giant star, anyway."

"Do you think that's what all stars look like?" Raven asked, somewhat wistfully. "What _we_ would look like beyond the clouds?"

The spotted, grey she-cat's head whipped around, fixating Raven with a shocked stare. "Don't tell me you're actually _going along with this_?"

The black-and-white tom looked offended. But, instead of denying her remarks, he went ahead and confirmed it. "Sure, why not? I mean, it seems reasonable enough."

"_Reasonable enough!?_" she nearly shrieked, aghast. "When _mice_ or-or-or _squirrels _**fly**!"

He bristled, turning a glare on her. "If you don't agree with someone, you don't have to _beat their opinions_ into the _dirt_!" He hissed, straightening up. "_Besides_, it seems better than the moon being a dying star or-or- the moon being made of cheese. Y'know, I would like to know where my life is going after all this-" he gestured with a paw to the room, and to life in general, "-and it seems to me that Mom is on to something."

Raven paused as he realized what he had just said, and he could see in Silver's gleaming eyes that he had said the extremely _wrong_ thing.

"So," she began coldly, "she's your mother now." Her next words were hissed. "Queen of the house, that _stupid_ **old** _**fleabag**_!" She snorted and stamped her paws in mounting anger. Her voice began to crack. "As if we _never_ had a mother of our own! Well, _I_ still remember and I'd rather return to that red-house than stick around here and lose much more of my senses!" Furious, tailed raised high, she marched towards the tunnel, paused and whipped around, sending chalk flying everywhere. "And if you do starve come leaf-bare, don't come crawling to me!"

With a last furious hiss, she stormed into the tunnel mouth and into the darkness.

* * *

After that enlightening conversation with her mother, Dapples decided to take a walk to clear her head. As she thought over their conversation, her thoughts continued to turn to Raven and whatever life she might have with him. She could not see herself becoming a queen - not with her responsibilities as a healer weighing heavily on her mind. She wanted to be able to be there for her brothers when Destiny...

She shook her head and the thoughts tumbled out of her head. Her paws were already guiding her towards the direction of the tunnel, pausing at the mouth for a moment in order to prepare herself for the mental onslaught the tunnel would inflict on her, or any other cat that entered it. She breathed deeply to steady herself, knowing that no matter what she did - what any-cat did, really - that the tunnel was the same awe inspiring experience as before, never wavering or lessening with each attempt to enter it. It always threatened to consume her, and some unearthly force was the only thing which kept her from forgetting to put her foot down, from forgetting that there was still land beneath her feet and from freezing out of fear that the next step would send her tumbling through nothingness. It was almost too much like the great blackness of the night sky.

"Umph..."

There was no smell, no sound, but the faintest stir of the wind across her whiskers and suddenly the two she-cats collided in space. Dapples suddenly found herself tumbling backwards, sending up clouds of dust as they both rolled down the tunnel and into a jagged offshoot. Moonlight exploded across her visions as Dapples lay dazed on her back, staring up into the startled face of Silver.

"Ah, fur and feathers!" Silver snarled, glaring at the current object of her fury. "_Can't you watch where you're going_!?"

Dapples didn't say anything, _couldn't _say anything. It was like someone or something else had wrested control over her body. All she could do was hear, see, feel and smell, and she could see the unnerved look which Silver was giving her. Without another word, the kittypet whipped around and disappeared into the tunnels, as if a pack of dogs were wildly marching on her heels.

"It's a pity, really," said a young meow. "A great leader could not come from shallower waters."

Dapples' head moved of it's own accord, and she stared at the phantom in shock. "W-what-?"

She was in a large bowl. A large silver pool of moonlight filled the clear. It was concentrated, focused like a massive road of light, before narrowing into a single beam which illuminated everything. A cat emerged from the center of the beam, a hundred galaxies swirling in her mottled coat. Rose-colored stars flickered deep within her fur, and amber eyes blazed brightly, filled with a depth of knowledge and wisdom beyond even that of Destiny's.

She suddenly looked sad. "Ahh, neither of you are ready yet."

Dapples was only more confused. "What?"

But the young she-cat merely disappeared, vanishing from the clearing like the moonlight, as if a cloud had rolled over the full moon though it shined more brightly than on any other night Dapples could remember. The calico stood up, found herself suddenly back in control of her body, and turned to vanish into the tunnels, feeling as if her entire world were tipping and swaying all around her. Something impossible had just happened. Something that no cat could possibly explain.

That is, none alive.

* * *

**End Chapter 9**

* * *

**A/N:  
**

**Miryam Lea**: OMgosh. Thanks so much for re-reading them! Glad you liked them. Oh, yeah, school's the same here. Unfortunately. Oh, and I'll have more free time for a whole week after the first Friday of October. Hopefully I'll update more often then.

**FourthWallBreaker**: Wow, I'm glad I've gotten you interested. At least I've accomplished something while I was busy elsewhere. LOL (Bad attempt at a joke. -.-')

**A/N:** Sorry about the late update. Sorry I don't have anything else here either. Yet.

**Next up: THE SECRET OF THE RED-HOUSE** (pt1)


	10. The Secret of the Redhouse pt 1

**Chapter 10**

The Secret of the Redhouse, pt1

* * *

Two month after her sudden encounter with Dapples in the Tunnel, a strange heaviness had developed in Silver's belly, giving her one more thing to complain about in the wretched forest. Leaf-bare had long since given way to green-leaf, though hardly any of the leaves looked green. The strange old cat had said something about the rain changing the color of the leaves early, but Silver had chalked that up to the old cat being too caught in the clouds. To Silver, this was normal.

The only joy out of the whole thing was that someone else seemed to be sharing in her stomach problems. Over the moons, Blaze had grown increasingly sloppier while hunting, and had finally been too slow to catch a rabbit. Her stomach had gotten too large, forcing her to step off of the patrols and retire to the old she-cat's den.

Secretly, Silver was glad she had missed that rabbit. She had grown tired of Blaze's and Lion's constant boasting to Tiger about Blaze's growing ability, especially when they did it within ear shot of Silver. It was obvious to Silver that Tiger did not want to catch a rabbit... and why _should_ he? Why put any effort into something which Blaze and Lion seemed perfectly capable of doing on their own. Well, as long as Silver and Tiger were still eating from the fresh-kill pile, Silver didn't think learning to hunt mattered.

Besides, Tiger was too busy to hunt.

He spent most of his time in the cabin tending to her, what little good that seemed to do considering her growing belly. He tried his best, she knew, but something about the fresh-kill and the herbs which were occasionally shoved down her throat seemed to cause her stomach to get bloated and worse. Now, she could begin to feel cramps coming on, and she found herself waddling wherever she went. It was not a dignified or pleasant experience, and she had had enough of the judgmental looks she kept receiving from the other cats.

So, when everyone else was asleep, she plucked up the courage to leave. She knew there was a nice cozy home waiting for her back at the Redhouse and she was bound and determined to get there before anything worse happened to her. She wanted to eat food that was much better for her stomach and she wanted to stop being judged because she was waddling around where she went.

Yes, Silver had decided to go home.

* * *

Leaf-green was not a season which lasted forever in the polluted forest. Tree leaves quickly turned brown, orange, red and yellow, though the atmosphere remained blistering hot for months. Here, in the distant past, leaf-green was a concept used to describe the first leaf buds that appeared on the greenhouse's tree. It marked the turning of the season for the cats, tell them that it would not be much longer before they were forced to leave. Today, a hot and heavy rain poured over the forest, dribbling down the dome glass and pooling on the ground outside.

Frowning to herself, Dapples pawed at a leaf on the Great Oak. Yellow, wrinkled spots decorated the otherwise waxy leaf, giving easily under-paw.

"I think some of the rainwater is getting to the tree," she called down to Destiny, who sat looking up expectantly. "Spots are already starting to appear on the lower leaves."

Destiny frowned. "No red or brown ones?"

Her daughter shook her head. "None so far." The young she-cat studied the world around her again, but looked back at her mother's next words.

"Well, I expected as much," Destiny admitted. "It's only natural that time would catch up to this place sooner or later. The rain must have leached at the foundation until it touched the roots." She looked up at the tree, and sighed. "You can come down now, there's not much we can do for it."

Dapples tensed her muscles to spring, but paused at a thought. "Could we have prevented this?"

The older cat laughed. "No, darling. Even if the humans hadn't endangered the place, I believe something even more mysterious to us would have taken this place away from us."

The younger cat frowned. "Why do you say that?"

For once in her long life, the old she-cat's expression turned confused, at a loss at what to say. "I don't know. It's simply a feeling."

Dapples clung to her branch and sprung to the next, clutching it beneath her long claws. A black-and-white shape suddenly exploded from the tunnel with a sudden yowl, followed quickly but a yellow pelt and a dark red pelt. The three of them collected themselves beneath the tree and the old she-cat, confusion and worry evident in their movements. Panting, scraping his claws against the moondust in agitation, Raven turned his wild-eyed gaze to Destiny.

"Mo~ther, Silver's gone!" he wheezed.

"And _so is Tiger_," growled Lion, ears flat and tail down, chest sucking in air.

"They've gone back," said the more horrified meow of Hearth. "Back to the red Twoleg den!"

"WHAT?"

Dapples was so startled by her own outcry that she nearly tumbled off the branch right there, and she fought to regain her balance, bounding back down the tree at dangerous speeds. "The Redhouse?" she squeaked at them as she touched the ground.

"Hush!" came Destiny's soothing meow. "Calm down, children. Catch your breath." When they had sucked in enough air into their starved lungs, she fixated Lion with her clear pale blue gaze. "Tell me what happened."

* * *

**End Chapter 10**

* * *

**A/N**: Ack, a short Chapter again. *annoyed* But, better than nothing right? ... I know, I'm sorry! TAT

**Icebreath**: Thank you so much for your review. And don't you fret, I do intend to finish this story. Promise! (I just am not sure how long that will take, considering how short my chapters are. -.-' )

**Next up**: The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 2


	11. The Secret of the Redhouse pt 2

**Chapter 11**

_The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 2 _

* * *

A glimpse of the dark red house on the barren hill was a sight for sore eyes as the waddling, pregnant she-cat hobbled forward awkwardly through the forest. A tight pain suddenly exploded in her lower belly, making Silver gasp loudly. She whimpered as she moved and another spasm rippled across her belly.

Whining, whimpering, wanting to go back to Destiny and angry with herself simply because she did, she pressed on. She may have desperately wanted to know what was wrong with her stomach, why it hurt so much, but she stubbornly refused to go to that mangy old fleabag for advice. She was almost _there_. She was almost home, and she wasn't about to turn back for anything. Not even the hot and burning rain could make her turn back, as it's dark liquid soaked into her coat.

She could not see the invisible paws that had taken hold of her life and directed her down this road. She could not see the invisible spirit of a young cat pressed up against her shivering waddling stomach, murmuring to the kits which had yet to be born and telling them it was almost time for them to come out. Rose-colored galaxies faded slightly beneath the onslaught of heavy rain and the evil, distant fingers of lightning, while pale moon eyes gazed into her hide and saw the unborn kits. _Soon_, she told them, _but not yet_.

Oblivious, half blinded by acid rain and pain, she stumbled around in the forest, losing sight of the red house as unhealthily drooping trees and colorful leaves blocked her view. She quickly lost all sense of direction as she reached unfamiliar territory - flattened by the rain and some other lumbering beast which she could neither smell nor see. She whined, eyes searching for anything, suddenly desperate. What happened to a cat who got lost in a strange, twisted, and unfamiliar land?

Another spasm of pain gripped her, and she hissed in pain. She felt, instinctively, that she would have to lie down soon. A maternal instinct, active only during those rare moments of birth, had gripped her and she did not entirely know what it entailed. No cat manuals were around to spell them out for her, not Dapples, not Hearth, not Raven, and certainly not Destiny.

A dip in the ground, an invisible section covered by withered branches and half-eaten leaves, sent Silver slipping down a short hill. She yelped and hopped to her feet, before another pang hit her and she was forced to look up and around for something - anything - to shield her from the rain. She need a place to lie down and figure out what in all nine-lives was going on with her rear end.

A sharp, jagged lean-to seemed to rear out of the ugly terrain. It's black maw an unhealthy lump amongst the rocks, wilting beneath the onslaught of years and years of rain. Silver winced, dragging herself forward and into the makeshift shelter, shifting her body across the strangely dry and flat floor. Other creatures had inhabited the lean-to before, the faint stench of vixen, badger and she-cat filled the place, before disappearing into obscurity. They had all abandoned it in time.

Unable to recognize the different smells, Silver let them fly pass her senses and brain without registering them. She settled onto the flat floor of the lean-to, breathing in the nice undisturbed air and wincing slightly as her body entered the first of her labor pains. Her eyes clouded, her senses dulled, and she took her first of many breath.

The cat of many stars hovered at the entrance to the lean-to, murmuring silently to the kittens within, encouraging them into the world and waiting for them to finally be born.

* * *

Even in the cabin, the heavy rain was lashing against the ceiling. Two ginger cats curled up tightly in Destiny's den, Hearth bringing the warmth and comfort which Lion could not, at that moment, give to Blaze.

In the center of the cabin, Dapples felt a strange tightness in her chest as she registered what her mother had just said. "What?" she said, disbelievingly.

The queen gave her a stern glare. "We cannot risk Blaze miscarrying while we are gone."

"But- but- you can't just _leave_ Blaze here, not when she's so **close**!" Dapples gasped, shocked.

Destiny rumbled. "_You'll_ have to," she said. "I will have to deal with a much bigger problem while I'm away."

"But I don't know the first thing about kitten birth!" Dapples exclaimed, suddenly horrified. "What if I-"

"Spot!" Destiny suddenly hissed, causing her daughter to stop and pause at her kit-name.

Realizing how kittenish she was being, Dapples calmed down and meowed, "I'm sorry."

The old queen flicked her ears, murmuring lowly so that the others wouldn't over hear. "You won't be the only one tonight who will be doing something they are not experienced with," she meowed evenly, "but _we_ will know more than _them_, with all our knowledge of herbs. We cannot simply give up just because we have run into something we have had no experience for. We must focus, try our best, and _deal with it_."

Dapples flinched. She hadn't realized before that there were some things that even Destiny didn't know, with all her knowledge of herb-lore. Though Destiny's eyes shown with a knowledge beyond that of any ordinary cat, Dapples had to come to grips that Destiny was merely a cat with experience. She blinked in apology. "I'm sorry..."

The brown-and-white she-cat sighed, her blue collar hanging loose around her thin neck. "We must keep moving on," she said, her voice grown mysterious.

Dapples' ears flattened. "Yes, mom," she murmured.

Unable to say much more, Destiny simply leaned down and licked her on the ear. "I love you," she said, then she stood up and moved toward Lion and Raven, both were eager to chase down the missing brother and the equally missing soon-to-be queen.

The calico frowned, her green eyes flashing. How was she suppose to do something she had no knowledge about? Even with all of Destiny's knowledge, she didn't know how to. The memory of cat, like Destiny, with knowledge brimming in her eyes like tears, brought Dapples to another possible solution. If her mother did not possess the knowledge, perhaps the Moon Cat did.

* * *

Rain slashed the trees, painting the leaves an ugly murky orange and red quilt, and lashing across the squinting amber eyes of a young tom. His dark red and black-striped pelt blended into the landscape, casting him into shadows, except for those amber eyes. He stalked forward with an uneasy skill and experience that came not from years of hunting and stalking, but from a restless uncertainty which had developed in his stomach. He was entering old territory, territory which had once conquered but had began to change. Trees reached out across slush covered clearings, their branches like claws waiting to tear his coat to shreds. He ducked, dodged, and pelted through the underbrush, his terror transforming into an adrenaline rush, bring back the old light in his eyes and causing him to stretch old muscles as he pounded towards his goal with single-minded determination.

The tiger within had been let loose, freed from normal restraints by a primal and instinctive fury which came from a deep-rooted worry for his mate. He darted up the hill, reaching the summit where he could glimpse for an instant the red house, before pelting heedlessly down it and into the wilting thicket, surging straight pass the sloping hill which marked where Silver had fallen moments before. In seconds, the young tiger had pounded beyond it, surging towards his destination without really sniffing the world around him or registering the dank and growing smell which rolled up the hill towards him, from the Red-house.

It was a smell that had clung to the hill from long before Tiger was born.

* * *

**End Chapter 11**

* * *

**A/N**: Ah, so it is revealed that the Moon Cat/Cat of Many Stars is waiting for poor little Silver to give berth, Dapples has an idea, and Tiger's going the wrong way again. XD But why is the Moon Cat so interested in Silver's kits? And who is she anyway? And what is that strange smell?

Give me your best guesses in a review! But, if you don't know, I still love any and all reviews and it does encourage me to continue writing this story!

**Next**: The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 3


	12. The Secret of the Redhouse pt 3

**Chapter 12**

_The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 3  
_

_Or _

_Be Careful Of The Path You Walk_

* * *

Her whiskers brushed against the black walls of the tunnel. Moondust absorbed the sound, preventing her from hearing her own paw-steps as she delved deeper into the darkness, with each step feeling as it would descend into utter nothingness and never hit solid ground again. Her stomach turned at the sensation, but she kept onward into the darkness, whiskers guiding the way.

It was an unnerving journey, and if not for her passion for learning and saving her friends' lives, she would have turned back long before she nosed her way inside. She pressed her body up against the walls, feeling somewhat comforted by the cold and slimy rock. It gave her a solid something to cling to, even if her paws slipped out from under her and the ground gave way beneath her. She walked like that the entire distance, practically falling into the offshoot that led to the Moon Clearing. She paused, one paw sinking into the pale moon colored dust. A large shaft of moonlight feel here, the moon's white circle shining even through the clouds, giving the area an unearthly glow.

Dapples had not seen the place clearly before and, even as she looked around, she knew she probably wouldn't be able to if she found it from outside the tunnels. If she ever _did_ found this place while outside of the tunnels, she would have more than likely find it by falling into it. It was so heavily surrounded by thickets and branches that she could not even see the trees which might identify where the place it might be. It was mysterious spot, secluded by forest, seen only by the moon, and yet found only bathed in moonlight; The Moonlit Clearing, the place of the Cat of Many Stars.

"Hello?" she meowed, her voice echoing loudly around them. She didn't really know how to address this she-cat, whoever she was. "Are you here?"

The moonlight flickered over the clearing, but nothing rippled or moved within it's silver waves.

The still silence echoed hollowly in Dapples' ears, like the distant toll of a mourning bell.

* * *

A thousand galaxies stirred in her coat as she moved further and further from the lean-to, pausing only every once and a while to glance back at the trio of galaxies following close behind her. The wails of the living were ignored as the four cats ascended the night air, flying into the dark clouds before disappearing beyond into the black blanket of the moon's bedding.

Silver curled into her makeshift den, alone and crying, her body and tail wrapped around the three stillborn kits.

* * *

A thousand thickets clawed at his pelt as the dark ginger tom pulled himself free and beyond into the fenced human nesting site. He paused to take a deep breath and coughed loudly, choking on the smell. He blanched visibly and recoiled, the smell pitching his stomach in all kinds of different directions that it should never be allowed to go.

"Silver?" he called, gagging. He crept around the house, trying to put the wind away from him and take away the smell, but whichever side of the house he went, the smell merely grew stronger and more suffocating. He shook his head and lowered it, but nothing seemed to prevent his nose from being assaulted by the smell.

It was coming from the front of the Redhouse.

Choking and snorting, as if trapped in a building blazing with fire and filled with smoke, he ducked his head even lower and squared his shoulders, fully intending to somehow push through the barrier which had built up around the house. But something he saw stopped him and made him turn back.

He prayed that she was not _there_.

* * *

She waited for only a few moments more before her call was finally answered.

But the cat that emerged from the moonlight was older than the one she had seen before, but she still held the same rosy glow in her galaxy swirls and bright blazing eyes. Darkness as deep as the blackness of space filled her coat with a depth unmatched by anything on Earth. Tendrils of mists contained her form into the sharp shape of a she-cat, and she meowed a greeting to Dapples as her misty body settled into a crouch.

"Hello," she said, her voice and twinkling eyes smiling. "Hello, Spots. Both of you."

Dapples blinked at that, unsure how to respond. It wasn't everyday when someone referred to you by your kitten name. She mentally shook herself, clearing her head of the clouds which had formed. "Um, who are you?" she finally asked.

The she-cat frowned at that. "My name will mean nothing to you," she said, a sadness in her voice and in the depths of her soul, "but you may call me the Cat of Many Stars. It seems to suit me, at least."

She blinked, nodding slightly. "Okay..." she said, wanting to comfort this stranger but instead remaining where she was. "I need your help," she said.

Suddenly, the Cat of Many Stars' eyes narrowed into slits. "No," she said firmly. "The path you walk will be yours alone."

Dapples flinched at that. "What? I just need some help!" she said, suddenly afraid that the other cat would leave. "To save a few lives! Please!"

The dead cat shook her head. "_A queen must first take the path, before her children can walk it._"

Confusion flooded across Dapples face, unable to comprehend. "What?"

But the dead cat had vanished. Three young kits, which had formed in the light behind her, stood up and followed, taking the majority of the moonlight with them and leaving the young she-cat to her own thoughts.

* * *

The heat and the rain quickly drenched the three cats as they tried to track the pregnant she-cat in the rain. The trail had quickly grown cold for the two toms to follow, but Destiny seemed to know exactly where she was going, even though her old eyes strained to see what she could in the darkness and rain. Flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder rippled across the sky, occasionally lighting the way and giving Destiny another reason to quicken her pace. Lion and Raven followed closely behind her, having lost their sense of direction a long time ago.

Destiny padded onward, her ears perked forward and her hard eyes locked dead ahead, almost as if she knew what might lay underpaw the farther and farther they went, and she dared not to look down to see it.

* * *

**End Chapter 12**

* * *

**A/N**: Akh, you're all going to hate me when I finally finish this story. I fear the day. -.-'

Q1: But why is the Moon Cat so interested in Silver's kits? - Because she was going to take them to StarClan. :)

Q2: And who is she anyway? - ...I didn't answer that seriously in this chapter. Huh. HINT: She made an appearance at the beginning of this story. NOT Dapples' mom, obviously. XD

Q3: And what is that strange smell? - ...I didn't answer this one either. -.-' Next chapter.

Q4: What did Tiger see? - New question.

**Icebreathstar**: Q1: Correct! XD. Q2: :/ I promise you that she's a dead OC. Could you try to figure it out? You got the others right. I know you can get this one. :) Q3: Yup. :3

**Next**: The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 4

Review please! And my poll is still up for those of you haven't voted (it will remain up until the end of this story)!


	13. The Secret of the Redhouse pt 4

**Chapter 13**

_Secret of the Redhouse, pt 4_

_or_

_Tiger's Bad Day  
_

* * *

The acid rain water dribbled down the roof of the Redhouse, like black tiger stripes.

Crouching beneath the lashing rain and a bush, the red tom blinked away rivulets of dirty water. His amber eyes pierced through the terrain, peering over the cliff and into the dark yard below. Empty, except for the white protrusions which laced the flat yard. Grass splattered across the surface, marking the places where bodies lay.

Tiger shivered in the cold, unable to move. The smell clung to the ground all around him, flattened to the earth because of the rain, but the memory of the stench was still there. The tom could not convince himself to move, as if to walk across that tainted land would be to drop off the edge of the Earth _forever_. It was worse than the tunnel, at least _there_ no sharp smell would slap him when he attempted walk through it.

Tiger preferred the tunnel to _this_.

A sinister cloud hung around the Redhouse, one which Tiger did not want to touch, let alone be around. He did not want to moved anywhere, or else risk hitting that wall.

He was trapped.

Invisible barriers rose all around him, encasing him. An invisible bear's trap had been sprung, clamping over his legs and rooting him to the ground.

Hiding in the bush, with the rain lashing all around him, all he could hear was the beating of his own heart.

* * *

Perhaps it was a mother's instincts which led her to the lean-to, or some long forgotten memory of her own journey there, many moons ago. Regardless, Destiny and her patrol soon fell upon the pitiful sight of the young queen.

The light grey, white-spotted queen had curled up into a tight ball, her tail half covering the three cold, dead kits. A slime strange dirty slime color had seeped into her fur, causing it to look even more ugly and ill-kept than ever before. It was not a sight any of them wanted to see.

"_Siss_," Raven whimpered. His voice broke and tears fell from his eyes as he took in the sight of his three nieces and nephews. He dragged himself in and beside the still she-cat, curling up with her and placing his head on her forehead. He looked at the two other cats, his eyes brimming with emotions he could not put into words.

"The journey must have killed them," came Destiny's response, cold with anger at what Silver's foolishness had wrought. She could not take in the sight of the three kittens without gritting her fangs and clenching her jaw. It reminded her too much of when she had her own litter, when had been desperately looking for a place to have them and keep them safe. In some cases, it reminded her of her childhood, how her mother neglected her brothers and sisters, until she had been the only one left to live.

Except, in this case, Silver had endangered herself and her kittens to come out here, so close to kitting. Holding back her anger and tears, Destiny dug her claws into the Earth and forced her emotions down. But, how could a queen be so selfish and stupid as to risk her own kits? She stood and whipped around, unable to look at the unconscious queen anymore.

"Lion, take the three kittens and _bury_ them here," she half-growled.

The young sand-colored cat frowned. "Shouldn't we tell Tiger?" he asked.

Destiny glanced at Silver, her eyes smoldering with emotions directed at the young cat. She had been so angry at Silver that she had forgotten about the young queen's mate, Destiny's own son. She frowned, unable to think through her emotions, and she looked at Lion. "What do you think?" she meowed.

Lion dipped his head. "I will let him bury them," he meowed.

His words held wisdom, and Destiny nodded, looking away to contain her emotions. _Tiger should be the one to give them a proper send off,_ she told herself. They deserved to let their father know what had become of them, and also what his mate had done to them.

"Very well," Destiny said, before she turned and stormed off, back up the slope.

The young mottled sand-colored tom frowned as she went, before padding into the lean-to and curling up on the other side of Silver, near the kits.

* * *

Tiger could barely believe he could still convince his limbs to move. A cold numbness had taken hold, whether from the cold, wet rain or the exhausting run, he could not figure out. He padded down the hill, fur bristling even against the wetness, as he took in another deep breath of that horrendous smell. His movements were slow, his paws were numb from the cold.

He never noticed when the ground beneath him suddenly turned flat. A dark grey streak, wide as a river, stretched before him, but the rain prevented him from seeing it. The smell around him merely grew stronger, as he crept more and more across the land. A cold fear had taken root in his stomach, weighing his paws down even more.

Suddenly, a horrible gut-retching noise reached his ears. With a shriek, he pressed himself flat against the ground, shut his eyes, paws over his ears. The earth began to tremble, stones and debris rattling all around him, puddles rippling ominously.

Something huge thundered out of the darkness, huge and black, with piercing yellows eyes that sliced straight through his eye lids. He opened his eyes just in time to see the monster thunder straight towards him. He remained rooted to the stop, mouth half-open in horror, as it roared. Then, it was upon him, and passed him, roaring off into the distance.

Trembling, Tiger kept still, clinging to the surface of the black rock, disbelievingly. His ears seemed to have gone slightly deaf, muddling with the sounds around him, for he could hear Dapples' voice near him.

_Run._

He would have probably never run, if something hadn't suddenly nipped him hard in his tail. Yelping, energy and adrenaline suddenly pumping through him, he shot off into the darkness, yowling in fear.

Claws unsheathed, slicing deep lines into the dark flat path, the Cat of Many Stars watch his dark pelt retreat into the forest. The storm raged on, oblivious to the spirit's presence.

* * *

**End Chapter 13**

* * *

**A/N**: And, here's the next chapter. Yay.

Q2: And who is she anyway? - I gave two hints this Chapter. Can you find them and answer this question? (I know this is hard. DX But try!)

Q3: And what is that strange smell? - Death!

Q4: What did Tiger see? - He's seen two things now. I've hinted at the first only slightly this chapter. The second should be blatantly obvious.

**JayxFeather**: Thanks! That means a lot to me. :) Please, give me any criticism you think I might need. *distantly* I'm ready.

**Icebreathstar**: Q2: You do that! :) And don't forget my hints. They will help. Q4: OMG, you're so close. But it is not blood. XD (And I had figured that out after your first post. Icebreath/Icebreathstar isn't that hard to figure out! XD ...especially since it seemed unlikely Icebreath was pretending to be you. ...if you can follow that logic. XD)

**Next up**: Secret of the Redhouse, pt 5


	14. The Secret of the Redhouse pt 5

**Chapter 14**

_The Secret of the Redhouse, pt 5  
_

* * *

"Cats of all Clans, join here beneath the Moon Tree for a clan meeting!"

The pale white tree with its long over-reaching branches rustled slightly as the cats gathered below it. Pelts of darkness and light and mist pulled themselves across the equally black and starry scenery, gathering atop grey mist to listen to the cats standing on high.

Her tail whisked around her, sending trails of grey mist swirling through the galaxies which made up her body. "Have we come to an agreement?"

The crowd murmured quietly to each other, before each one flicked their tail in 'yay' or 'nay'. A few remained undecided and that made the Cat of Many Stars frown.

"Something wrong?"

A large black tom arose among them, his stars glowing with all the light of a black hole, with mist the only thing keeping his shape together. "Should we be concerned whether Spottedkit's prolonged stay will cause her Soul to be lost into Time?"

Another cat answered him, a familiar cat whose beautiful young voice caused heads to turn.

"It is not her destiny to meet death in this way," the old she-cat spoke, turning to look at the lead cat. "Daughter, he brings up an excellent point. Perhaps Spottedkit's experience of the distant past may not include the following months."

The Cat of Many Stars frowned. "You do not wish her to learn how the first Medicine Cat gained her knowledge?"

"Or how they first discovered the Secret of the Redhouse?" meowed another voice, indistinguishable from the Clan.

"StarClan, hear me," said the Old One. "What Tiger learns that day will only cause his heart to break. She must remain only long enough to see who Silver truly is. _Then_, she must see how that young cat will change."

Murmurings from the crowd showed that they agreed with her, albeit with some lingering doubts. The Cat of Many Stars gestured with a flick of her tail for a recount of votes. Many more voted 'yay', and no one was undecided.

"Then, we shall begin," said the young cat, turning to her mother. "Destiny?"

The Old One nodded. "Then, tonight, the clocks shall roll forward, and Spottedkit will see the rise of Silverpelt."

* * *

Spottedkit felt slightly dizzy as Dapples walked into the nursery den and all of a sudden seemed to walk right back out again. Something strange had happened, and she understood that Dapples had witnessed something Spottedkit herself was not privy to, and she didn't know what to say or think about that.

Lion was waiting outside in the cabin, with an exhausted looking Hearth. The poor young she-cat looked like she had run all the way back and forth from the cabin to the lean-to, through all the pouring dirty rain, just to pick up Lion and inform him of the news. Blaze had given birth to three new and healthy kits. Lion immediately pushed past her and into the den, curling up beside his tired mate and giving her a somewhat tired, loving lick.

But from the expression on Hearth's face, both Spottedkit and Dapples knew that something else had also happened.

"What's wrong?" the calico she-cat asked.

Hearth looked uncomfortable, unwilling to explain to Tiger's sister the tragic loss of her nieces and nephews. Though she herself had no family attachment to Silver, Tiger or Raven, she understood that she would have been devastated if Dapples had told her that her sister's kits had been stillborn.

"Um..." she said, what little courage she had failing her, "I have to go, uh, drink."

Frowning, Dapples watched the nervous she-cat go. Shaking her head, she walked tiredly over to the fresh-kill pile, picked up a large and plump mouse, and came back to the entrance of the den to eat. She heard the voices of the cat's inside and was thankful that there wasn't any Moondust in Destiny's old den to muffle the noise. The rain often sounded more sinister in the silence.

"-ong?" asked Blaze, though Dapples had missed her question.

Her brother was quiet for a moment before he spoke. "It's Tiger."

From the tone of his voice, Dapples wondered if Tiger's had disappeared with Silver and decided to stay with her. She winced in pain at the thought, but stopped herself when he continued.

"His kits... didn't make it."

The piece of fresh-kill fell from her open-mouthed jaws. Dapples eyes had grown huge. Her mind whirled; Could her mother had failed to help birth them? She could not believe that.

"What happened, darling?" came Blaze's concerned voice.

His next words sent a cold shiver down Dapples' spine. "Silver killed them."

Bile rose in her mouth and she suddenly lost all interest in eating. A distant memory of her mother explain to her about the death of her sister Dawn came to mind and she felt ten times as horrible. What if Destiny, like Silver, had killed _them_? She knew Destiny would never entertain the thought, so why did Silver?

She missed the rest of that conversation as she suddenly arose to her paws and moved away, sickened to the core. She immediately came to a halt, though, when Silver and Raven shoved through the cat door and into the dry, warm Cabin.

At the sight of Silver, Dapples suddenly became furious. She stomped forward, intent on giving the she-cat a piece of her mind.

"Silver!" she snarled, ignoring the expression of surprise on Raven's otherwise horrified face and the expression of dejection and shock from Silver's.

"What have you done!?" she meowed, her own horror and shock reflected in her angry tones. "How could you do that to your own kits!?"

Silver looked stunned and, as if the other's sudden outburst had suddenly brought up Silver's old defenses, her reply came back somewhat shaky, but tart, like the old Silver. "_**I** _didn't do anything!" she spat, her eyes narrowing in accusation. "It was that old fleabags' fault!"

It was Dapples' turn to look shocked. She had entertained the possibility, but never imagined that it might be real. "I don't believe you!" she said. "It's your own fault for them dying!"

"Dapples, please," meowed Raven, eyes pleading, but to no avail.

Silver stepped forward, her anger aroused. "It's all of your fault! All of you!" she hissed, suddenly moving away from Raven and Dapples. "You forced me to stay here! I wouldn't have had to leave if it hadn't been for you!" She ignored them, marching towards the door, body trembling in fury. Her grief blinding her to all else. "I never asked to be here!"

"We never asked for you to stay!" snapped Dapples, aware that what she was saying was harsh and kittenish, but she was unable to stop. "We never asked to listen to _you_ constantly complaining all the time and making excuses about how much you don't have time to do _some serious work_! We are trying to make a living and all you ever do is sneak off with our lunch without bothering to help hunt or keep the den clean!"

Her points were ignored however, as Silver turned and gave her a furious glare. "This is your life! Not mine! I can live mine however I want!"

She stormed toward the door, but was stopped by the untimely (or timely) arrival of Tiger and Destiny.

Tiger looked dirty from his head to his tail, his nose bleeding profusely and his tail tip dripping dirty black blood. His eyes were huge with shock and fear. He noticed Silver immediately, and his ears perked forward and his panic immediately quelled.

"What's going on here?" he asked, his voice sounding authoritative. He was always demanding and authoritative when it came to finding out what-had-wounded-Silver's-pride-today.

"Oh, she was just leaving!" snarled Dapples, her voice running over Raven's own explanation. Dapples raised her tail in a huff. "Back to the Redhouse, I'm sure."

Tiger's expression put a halt to everything. Dapples shut up and stare; Raven's jaw clamped shut; and Silver's tail lowered. Only Destiny seemed unaffected, tail curled calmly around her paws as she sat down.

"No," Tiger growled, looking Silver straight in the eye. "You are _not_ going back to the Redhouse!"

Silver gave out an idignant "What!" and Dapples almost mimicked her, albeit with a tone of disbelief rather than angry shock.

Fear crept into his eyes and he waved his tail behind him as if to gesture at something beyond the wall.

"Only the skeletons of cats and Rain Monsters can live at The Redhouse!"

* * *

**End Chapter 14**

* * *

**A/N: **Questions answered? :) ...and I know what your thinking, how does the Old One know about clocks? XD

**Next Up**: A Dark Trail, pt 1

Read and Review please!


	15. The Dark Trail pt 1

**A/N**: (Yes, I know, author notes were to be moved to the bottom, but I have an important announcement to make that I want **_all my readers_ **to read.) Okay so, as I was promising a hundred chapters ago, any future chapter is now longer. Yep. I am a happier person, even though writing this chapter took two days. But now that I have this entire story arc planned out, it should be happening at a much quicker and controlled pace. But there's a condition...

******To all my Readers**: So those unanswered questions that I last mentioned and you might not yet have the answers to, will be re-answered far more bluntly at the end of this story arc. This is the probably last story arc before the Epilogue of this story. However, I may not post that here. If you want to see me continue this, all you have to do is post a review that says "Keep writing." I will get the message.

* * *

**Chapter 15**

The Dark Trail, pt 1

* * *

It had been bothering her for a few moons now.

Her abilities as a medicine cat had grown beyond that of even her mother, which was unsettling to the young she-cat. She never wanted to think of herself above her mother and she didn't know what to think now that she had basically become mother to every cat in their little family, including her own mother. She was the one out there, searching for herbs for remedies that her mother had taught her and deducing through experiments which herb caused which symptoms.

The long and difficult process had begun without Dapples enough knowing it, and it did not dare to stop. She had, in all sense of the word, become enlightened, and she was glad of it. Now she could take care of everybody, and make sure none of them fell victim to the same unknown illness which had taken her sister.

It had been a dream she harbored for many moons - ten almost - and she never spilled her ambition to anyone. She kept it locked up inside herself, away from prying eyes and ears. Until the day she had discovered the Moon Clearing and she realized she could to talk with The Cat of Many Stars.

The curious phenomenon which had first led to her fleeing that place never happened again; she remained in complete control over her own body the every time she was there, speaking with The Cat. She held so many countless and long discussion, often ending with very little more knowledge than what she started with and often with many more questions that she could not properly put into words.

The Cat spoke of many place; of fire and ice, of forests and mountains, of rivers and shadows, of thunder and wind. Much of what she said was abstract, as if they served no real purpose in what they were talking about, and only when the Cat told stories did Dapples truly understand how all those abstract ideals came to play. StarClan, the Place of No Stars, the Valley of the Dead, the Moon Tree, and much, much more, and it all sounded more from a faerie tale and not something more down to mortal level.

Dapples found herself padding down the long and black tunnels to the Clearing once more, brimming with questions, only half of which could possibly get an abstract answer to. One of them might get her another story, and Dapples was always after another story, even one that didn't make a lick of sense.

Her paws sank into the moondust as she soundlessly slipped out of the tunnel and into the moonlit Clearing. The three young cats were already waiting for her, while the larger one seemed to be late. Dapples dropped into the ground, grateful that the sweet bouncy grass felt comfortable beneath her. None of the three cats gave her much notice, instead sharing tongues amongst themselves as all four of them waited out the arrival of The Cat.

A short pause turned into a long moment, causing Dapples to shift uncomfortably and lick her paw, trying not to stare at the other young cats. Their misty pelts showed pale white in the moonlight, but they otherwise disappeared into the backdrop of the dip. Dapples understood who they were, even though she had never caught their names; the loss of Silver's three kits and the arrival of these cats in the land of the dead could only be more than mere coincidence. They looked like her brother's mate did, silvery-spotted and grey, except for one which sported his father's stripes and a darker brownish coat.

Suddenly, in a burst of white and silver, the misty form of the Cat of Many Stars landed at the center of the clearing, curling her wispy tail around her tail. Galaxies swirled in the center of her being, each one a rosy color, reflecting the deep rosy-color in her eyes. Her arrival immediately spawned a reaction from Dapples and the three young cats, causing all of them to move forward and sit around the Cat.

The rose starred cat turned her eyes on Dapples, their depths pooling with knowledge unmatched by any cat, dead or living. "You have questions," she meowed, more a statement than a question. She gestured with her tail to the three young cats, as if telling them to back up with that one gesture. Suddenly, Dapples was alone with her, the other three having disappeared from the Clearing.

"Speak," she said, "we are alone now."

Dapples nodded to herself, flicking her tail at the Cat, silently asking for a moment to collect her thoughts. The Cat blinked but remained silent, watching the living cat expressionlessly. After a moment, Dapples finally looked up.

"Why are you still here?"

It was a question which she had asked three times before, but each time she asked, she searched for a different meaning. The Cat of Many Stars knew this, and thus remained quiet, silently asking her to specify. This silent communication always guided their discussion, and it reflected just how deeply these two cats knew each other, even though one of them wasn't entirely aware of it.

"Why have you not gone where _all_ the spirit cats go?"

The Cat paused and considered this, her tail flicking curiously beside her. "You mean," she spoke, "why have I not faded?"

Dapples nodded and waited patiently, tail tip twitching. The dead cat turned her head around, glancing at the moonlight bathed clearing.

"There are two kinds of death," she said. "Death by claws or blade - what we might consider the normal way - and then there is death by _Forgetting_." She gestured with a sweep her tail behind her. "Death by Forgetting is when we fade into the next life, or disappear forever into oblivion. Sometimes, before we are Forgotten, we are reborn."

Dapples flicked her ears. "And you know this to be true how?"

The Cat flicked her tail in annoyance, as if she had gone over this before. "We can see into the future."

"Ah," came the calico's intelligent response.

"Is that all the questions you have for me today, Spots?" The Cat of Many Stars asked her, amused and exasperated.

"No, no," the living cat assured her. "Just give me a moment to think..."

* * *

Life in the so-called Clan was nothing like his old life in the Red-house. For one, he never had to deal with the grabby Two-leg lifting him off the ground and shoving unwanted herbs into his bowl and poking him with metal sticks that made him either sick or wobbly. He clawed at the dirt, forcing his mind to return to the world around him. His black-and-white pelt rippled as he stood and moved, hard and lean muscles working smoothly beneath his young pelt. Raven frowned as he approached Mother's den. He could stop himself from thinking of Destiny that way - huh, Destiny, he rarely called her that anymore. It was mostly just Mom or Ma'am.

The den was silent except for the familiar sounds of Blaze and Lion talking quietly. A pang of longing hit Raven as he approached, forcing him to turn away and walk around the place. He wanted that kind of life for himself - he would admit that to himself - but he could not bring himself to wonder just who he might have that life with. Destiny was too old, Hearth was too quiet, and Dapples was just...

Raven didn't know what to think of Dapples. The she-cat often kept to herself or Destiny, remaining distant and mysterious, on the edge of most sharing-tongues and with her ears perked into the conversations. From what little he knew of Dapples, he liked her but, beyond some shared hunting patrols, their relationship had - oddly enough - not developed beyond that.

Raven ducked his head down as he moved away from the den. Mother wouldn't be there, ruining whatever moment Blaze and Lion were having. The black tom padded away, toward the moondust tunnel entrance, pausing to sniff uncertainly at the tasteless wind which blew lightly out of the tunnel. He forced himself to stop a shudder and he flicked his tail to shake it away. Frowning and taking a calming breath, he stalked forward and into the darkness.

A part of him felt as if he had just merged with the shadows, become a part of it, like a star hooked up into the night sky. He moved smoothly, walking with grace and growing fearlessness. He flicked his ears back slightly, opening his mouth slightly and taking in a deep drought of air. Beneath the tasteless air, he could swear that he detected the sweet smell of Silver and Dapples, and some-cat else. In the darkness, shapes danced across the surface of the cave. Cat shapes, clawing at the air and swinging their paws in battle. A blast of ghastly flame began to creep across his vision, swallowing his vision whole, and he merely kept walking, absentmindedly, sinking complacently into the wild visual ride. The fires danced, transforming into a cat, a blazing cat that roared like a lion and chased the darkness across the land. Three stars trailed behind him, gold and white and grey. Then, the darkness suddenly peeled away beneath the sudden appearance of a white beam of light.

The great white tree, covered in moonlight, seemed to grow more and more surreal every time Raven looked at it. After the strangeness of the tunnel, it felt almost natural to slip out onto the surreal plane and pad up to the base of the tree. He noticed, almost too late, a white and brown she-cat resting at the base of the tree, her nose pressed against the pale bark. He stopped, tail twitching uncertainly as he determined what to do. Finally, he padded softly forward, taking up a crouch beside the queen.

"Destiny...?" he meowed.

When she remained unmoving and quiet, he crouched down and became quiet, waiting patiently for the old cat to wake up. A few long hours passed and Raven remained seated, his eyes looking away from the sleeping queen and up at the strange scenery of the tree. The moon reflected in his iris, and Raven felt a sudden urge to curl up beneath the tree and join Destiny with his nose pressed up against the tree. He blinked and the feeling vanished, interrupted by the sudden gasp of the old she-cat as she woke from her trance. She shivered, pale blue eyes wide as her head jerked rapidly around, finally falling on Raven.

Uncertain, Raven meowed softly at her. "Destiny?"

She blinked and composed herself, dropping down beside him and tucking her paws beneath her, tail curling around herself. "Raven?" she asked, quietly, curiosity in her pale blue eyes.

Raven frowned, thoughts swirling about in his head, but he decided to deal with what was more recent. "What were you doing just then, ma'am?"

Destiny stared at him for a moment, before looking at the tree, as if it were some mysterious puzzle she could not yet figure out. "...I'm not sure," she admitted, her ears dropping.

She stared at the ground, consumed by her thoughts and forgetting that Raven was there. The black-and-white tom remained quiet, not feeling the need to interrupt her thoughts. He knew that her thoughts were important to her and that sometimes some amazing things happened when a cat thought too much and too long. Thoughts were precious to Raven, just as he assumed they were precious to Destiny. So, he remained quiet, patiently waiting out her thoughts and only moving when he thought she had forgotten his presence. He put a paw forward, gently touching her paw and drawing her from her thoughts with his silent action. She looked into his eyes, reading his unspoken curiosity.

"Yes, Raven?"

He opened his mouth to speak and shut it, before he opened it again with a sigh. "I don't want to intrude, but it seemed like you were dreaming something fierce. Nightmare?"

"A nightmare?" she meowed, surprised, eyes growing distant. "Yes, I suppose you can call it a nightmare."

The black and white tom frowned, gazing at the queen out of the corner of his eye. He did not want to seem rude and stare at her, but the expression of loss and longing seemed too important to miss. Instead, he decided to draw the topic of discussion away from her dreams.

"Why are you still here?" he meowed suddenly, aware of his voice sounding like a whisper, as the moondust absorbed the sound and kept their conversation quiet.

Destiny's ears flicked, but she gave no other indication of taking note of his question. She blinked owlishly and stared at the tree for so long that Raven thought her old mind had already grown distant. He was preparing to leave when she spoke up.

"Be specific, Raven, that question could mean a hundred different things, some of which you don't want to know the answer to."

He frowned at that response, before thinking it over. "Why did you stay here, if you dislike the rain so much?"

The old queen remained still, thinking it over and wondering just exactly how to respond. She barely shifted as she contemplated, and when she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. "I was not expecting you kits to come," she admitted, much to Raven's confusion.

"I don't understand."

She paused, before slowly looking at him, her eyes having acquired that familiar soft feeling which often happened just before she was about to tell a long story. "It began a long time ago, after a harsh rain storm had filled up the lean-to, and had taken from me my second daughter." She paused, and Raven did not have to think hard on what she meant by the lean-to. Destiny's odd behavior around Silver after the incident at the old lean-to told him enough.

"She drowned, didn't she?" he asked.

Destiny face contorted slight, and she gave a weak nod. "My beautiful kit..." she meowed, pained. "A mottled, rosy she-cat, like Lion and Tiger combined, with eyes as rosy as her beautiful coat." Destiny's lips quivered and she squeezed her eyes shut. "She would have made a wonderful daughter, and a loving sister to Dapples, I'm sure."

Raven could not bring himself to break the wall of grief which wrapped around Destiny in that moment. He realized that this dead kit was probably why Destiny had reacted so badly to Silver's kits' death. He waited patiently, tail curled around his paws, giving the old cat time to continue.

Destiny's lip quivered, but she found the strength to continue. "I knew that the only way my kits could survive the stormy weather was to bring them somewhere safer. Once the storm was about to life, I took the time to leave my kits." She winced, choking back a pained mewl. "I came back after having scouted out the cabin and catching a rabbit. I fed them some of the hard food, along with my milk, and once I had enough strength, I convinced them to leave the lean-to with me. Snow fell all around us, coating the world in a blanket of white, while I lead my kits through the territory to here. I fed them some old kittypet food, mush with some semi-clean water, and after they feel asleep together, curled up in the middle of the cabin, I left to survey my new surroundings.

"I found the den first and dragged them there, those poor half-asleep things! It was warm on the soft chalky white powder and I enjoyed it beneath my paws. I found some moss to put around them, and then left them to look around my territory more. That's when I found the tunnel.

"As first, I didn't know what to think of it, but-" And here she paused, her lips closed and she remained silent for a very long and unnecessary moment, before continuing; "-I felt compelled to go inside."

Raven knew instantly that there was more to it than that, but he did not pry. He sat back and waited for her to continue.

"The darkness was like nothing I had ever seen before. Each footstep felt as if I would fall into the nothingness around me, only to be halted by the soft moondust..." -Raven could feel and hear the wonder in Destiny's voice and it reminded him of his own first journey through the tunnels- "It felt soft underpaw, like the gentle but strong wind which can carry you if you don't keep your body and claws near the ground. I found it exciting and curious, and I always loved a good curiosity." She smiled at the memories, purring as she flicked her tail around her. "And it was here that I arrived."

Raven used her pause to glance around at the tree and the snowy ground around them, that strange warm soft snow. Raven returned his gaze to the old she-cat, waiting for her to continue.

"I was entranced by the tree," she said, "and I felt compelled to press my nose to the trunk here. In an instant, I saw only darkness. The nothingness of the sky at night, when the clouds part, had engulfed me totally, suspending me over a deep dark pit and yet carrying me aloft so that I did not fall. I saw lights born of fires, appear in the sky, of starry and stray cats that raced through the darkness, never being led, never leading, but a group nonetheless. I was pulled by this tide, and I found myself joining them, racing to whatever destiny awaited them.

"I saw fire, death, and life, and so many other things which you cannot possibly imagine. I saw my future, the future of my young kits, and then some, and I knew and understood with great certainty a lot of things which some old cat had tried and failed to teach me." She sighed, looking at her paws in sadness. "As I came to this conclusion, the darkness shifted and I found myself on a stary landscape, made up partially in mist. Among the cats there was a kit, barely older than my own, who greeted me warmly and bounded up to me to touch my nose. Her eyes were like a swarm of beautiful roses, each twinkling its own joyous light. I realized that I knew this cat, though no name came to mind. She spoke to me about my future, my destiny, and what I was meant to be."

She paused, suddenly looking up at Raven with a thoughtful expression. "But I've gotten off-topic. The reason why I am still here is because of my kits. I love them and care for them, even if one of them may never return my love." She seemed to choke on that, pausing to regain her bearings. "I wanted them to grow up, when they could hunt for themselves, before leading them out from beneath the Storm's shadow and into the stary nights."

Raven's mind swarmed with thoughts, most of which he couldn't pin-down and articulate into words. Instead, he sat back and let it settle, waiting until he was ready for more words.

"I had discussed this with Lion, once," she admitted, "but he refused to bring it up in a family meeting. I told him that he and his brother and sister needed to go, that I had grown too old to carry myself across the land which would get me out of the Shadowlands."

The black and white tom jerked up at that, affronted that she should even consider such a thing, but he remained silent and largely grateful that Lion had refused to bring it up. A hard glance from her brought him back to a crouch, paws tucked underneath him, though a restless energy prevented him from fully settling again.

"I realized that he would not go anywhere while I am still alive," she said, finally. "None of my kits would, not even Tiger. Selfishly, I am grateful. I do not want to die alone here, not with only my old bones and weak muscles. It gets eerie here at night, as if something is lurking in the shadows that I cannot see. The presence does not feel like a stranger's to me, nor an enemy's, but I still feel uneasy with it there."

She paused, eyes narrowed as she glanced at Raven. "You know," she said, "you are the first cat that I have ever met who could get my secrets out of me so easily."

Raven felt uneasy at the compliment, as if he didn't deserve it, but her next words only made him even more uneasy.

"Perhaps it's my old age creeping up on me."

He shuddered. "You make it sound like a hunter."

Her eyes narrowed. "It _is_. He is the greatest hunter known to cat kind. Some cats call him Time."

* * *

The cozy queen's den smelled like nothing and muffled sounds came from inside, both absorbed by the presence of moondust.

_'Well,'_ Hearth thought._ 'It certainly draws predators away. No scent to track.'_

Her meow was muffled by the mouse in her jaws as she called out to her sister. A meow answered her, warmly welcoming her and the prey. A mottled golden pelt emerged from the nursery, and Lion gave her a warm 'hello' as he headed toward the cat door. Hearth frowned, shoving down a bout of jealousy. It seemed he received most of Blaze's attention nowadays.

She wasn't against their relationship; in fact, she felt happy for them. The love between those two cats seemed to made of chains fastened around their necks. One wasn't far from the other, and they were often caught doing very kittenish things together. It seemed like a fun thing to do - to have a mate - but Hearth didn't see herself finding one real soon. So, she shoved aside her jealousy and meander into the den.

The three young ginger kits tumbled around, greeting the new cat with a bump into her legs. Hearth purred in amusement, watching the three kits stumbled to their paws, their play having been interrupted by her presence. They gave soft, unintelligent meows as they suddenly found an interest in her tail. Words bubbled from their throats in short bursts, their small sentences meaning more than what Hearth and Blaze were capable of understanding.

"Morning, sister," Hearth greeted her once-pregnant sibling. "How are things between you and Lion?"

The proud fiery red she-cat purred in amusement. "As difficult as ever," she said, amused. She sniffed the air, but the moondust made it tasteless. "What did you bring?"

"Mouse," she responded, purring, picking it up and dropping beside the cat. She stepped back, allowing the larger cat more room in the semi-crowded nursery. "Does Destiny visit you often?" she asked, only half-interested. Beyond the few words of wisdom the old cat shared and the interesting stories, Hearth did not see anything special about her. She was old and feeble-minded, not the same cat that Raven or Blaze seemed to admire.

Blaze shook her head. "No, she rarely seems to get away from Dapples, the poor cat!"

Hearth perked her ears up at that. "What? What do you mean by that?"

The older sister sighed in exasperation. "I mean, that it's sad Dapples bothers the poor old cat so much."

The mocha-colored she-cat blinked her amber eyes in confusion. "She does?"

In all honesty, Hearth never saw that she-cat around. It was as if Dapples was always busy, though Hearth never saw her return with prey after a bout through the forest. It was always herbs, herbs and more herbs. Hearth shuddered to think what the cat did with those herbs - she could not help but think back to the Re-

Hearth blinked, refocusing on the play fighting kits before her. She stared at them, allowing herself to quickly be distracted. Blaze frowned, but did not question the odd behavior. The two sisters remained in silence for a while, enjoying each others company while it could last. A nagging sensation began to form in Hearth's mind and she opened her mouth to confront Blaze.

"Why was Lion here?" she asked.

"Lion?" Blaze asked, startled.

Hearth looked at her curiously, causing the queen to turn and look away. Hearth frowned. "Blaze?"

The unsettling silence which settled over them bothered Hearth, and she felt the rift which had begun to form between her and her sister, caused by a nameless yellow cat, start to grow.

"Okay," she said, "I'll come back with some water-soaked moss. I'm sure it could do you a world of good."

Blaze meowed her thanks as Hearth left. The mocha-colored she-cat frowned at her sister's odd behavior, wondering what could possibly have caused her sister to clam up. Ever since her sister and Lion had gotten together, a rift seemed to have forged between her and and her sister; a rift which seemed to be growing the long she stayed there.

* * *

**A/N:** As a reminder. If you want me to continue this story, then post a review that says "Keep writing." That's all I ask. It doesn't take that long to do. If I don't get any at all or I only get one, then I won't continue this story. I can spend my time working on another story which I have been thinking about for a much longer time, and it doesn't even belong in this fandom.


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